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May 9, 2010 -- 3:43PM, XunValDorl_of_HouseKilsek wrote:

Murder is evil no matter how much sugar you put on it.

     Care to provide an argument which doesn't boil down to 'nuh-uh'?

May 9, 2010 -- 3:53PM, MrCelsius wrote:

May 9, 2010 -- 3:43PM, XunValDorl_of_HouseKilsek wrote:

Murder is evil no matter how much sugar you put on it.

     Care to provide an argument which doesn't boil down to 'nuh-uh'?

It's Xun, did you really need to ask?

May 9, 2010 -- 3:53PM, MrCelsius wrote:

May 9, 2010 -- 3:43PM, XunValDorl_of_HouseKilsek wrote:

Murder is evil no matter how much sugar you put on it.

     Care to provide an argument which doesn't boil down to 'nuh-uh'?

To be fair, I agree that murder is evil (Defining Murder as the premeditated taking of life without provocation or justification). I don't, however, believe that engaging in mortal combat and bringing such combat to it's inevitable conclusion is actually murder, even if a non-lethal alternative exists (regardless of how impractical). When two people/groups enter into a lethal combat scenario, they acknowledge that, so long as that scenario play's out to it's conclusion (IE, no-one flee's or surrenders), then someone is going to die (hence the "lethal" part of it). Both sides need to acknowledge that (else, those that didn't would flee or surrender), and once they do, death is a natural (not evil) and justified part of that scenario.

May 9, 2010 -- 3:53PM, MrCelsius wrote:

May 9, 2010 -- 3:43PM, XunValDorl_of_HouseKilsek wrote:

Murder is evil no matter how much sugar you put on it.

     Care to provide an argument which doesn't boil down to 'nuh-uh'?

Kill intentionally and with premeditation.  Thats all the argument you need.

Individual societies determine what is evil and what is not. Just because we put people to death in our justice system that doesn't make it any less evil.  Law is neither good nor bad but a necessity.

May 9, 2010 -- 4:57PM, Kratch wrote:

To be fair, I agree that murder is evil (Defining Murder as the premeditated taking of life without provocation or justification).

     That's... an odd definition, in my opinion.  I hate to be the person who pulls out Webster's, but when discussing definitions I suppose it's fair play.  Neither Merriam-Webster's nor Dictionary.com says anything about whether or not the act is provoked or justified.  Using that definition is like saying 'I agree that sex is evil (defining sex as intercourse without consent)'.  You're right that what you're describing is evil, but what you're describing isn't what the word you're using is describing.

I don't, however, believe that engaging in mortal combat and bringing such combat to it's inevitable conclusion is actually murder, even if a non-lethal alternative exists (regardless of how impractical). When two people/groups enter into a lethal combat scenario, they acknowledge that, so long as that scenario play's out to it's conclusion (IE, no-one flee's or surrenders), then someone is going to die (hence the "lethal" part of it). Both sides need to acknowledge that (else, those that didn't would flee or surrender), and once they do, death is a natural (not evil) and justified part of that scenario.

     That's a good point right there.  Technically if you're not a representative of the government engaging in mortal combat in furtherance of your duties then it's still murder (the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice  aforethought - Webster's), but it's a solid distinction.  I'm not sure I'm with you 100% on the conclusions drawn therefrom, but it's something I'll be pondering.

     Having looked up the definition for 'murder', I find it a bit too specific for my tastes (referring particularly to whether or not the act is lawful in the very definition), and shall from now on endeavor to be as general as possible and restate thusly: in my opinion, killing a person is neutral.  As 'killing' is to 'murder' as 'rectangle' is to 'square', this still means that I find the act of murder (as defined) to be neutral in nature.

May 9, 2010 -- 6:18PM, XunValDorl_of_HouseKilsek wrote:

Individual societies determine what is evil and what is not. Just because we put people to death in our justice system that doesn't make it any less evil.  Law is neither good nor bad but a necessity.

???

What are you trying to tell us, exactly?

The society that the D&D world and the various settings (past and present) represent more of a western age quality than the modern age with various laws and societal expected manners. There are "bad" people (or races, as we are in a fantasy game here) that want nothing more than to take over and rule themselves, or at least take what is yours and keep it for themselves. The various arguments between posters here about WWII and trespassing, defending homes and such is missing the point, one that seems lost in the more serious subjects that have taken over...

*reading the thread title...* It is impracticle to have (most) players make a character with the Evil alignment for a Heroic group within the Dungeons & Dragons game.

So the good characters in the game is supposed to, what, play rock, paper, scissers with the monsters and never lift a weapon in their own defense? Because killing in any way would be unlawful and therefore Evil? I believe you are playing a different game than the rest of us, good sir.

Murder is is legal term rather than a moral standard. You need to move beyond the word by defining the act.

May 9, 2010 -- 6:36PM, thaX wrote:

May 9, 2010 -- 6:18PM, XunValDorl_of_HouseKilsek wrote:

Individual societies determine what is evil and what is not. Just because we put people to death in our justice system that doesn't make it any less evil.  Law is neither good nor bad but a necessity.

???

What are you trying to tell us, exactly?

The society that the D&D world and the various settings (past and present) represent more of a western age quality than the modern age with various laws and societal expected manners. There are "bad" people (or races, as we are in a fantasy game here) that want nothing more than to take over and rule themselves, or at least take what is yours and keep it for themselves. The various arguments between posters here about WWII and trespassing, defending homes and such is missing the point, one that seems lost in the more serious subjects that have taken over...

*reading the thread title...* It is impracticle to have (most) players make a character with the Evil alignment for a Heroic group within the Dungeons & Dragons game.

So the good characters in the game is supposed to, what, play rock, paper, scissers with the monsters and never lift a weapon in their own defense? Because killing in any way would be unlawful and therefore Evil? I believe you are playing a different game than the rest of us, good sir.

By your response I honestly don't think you even know what you are talking about.

This is a very rare situation... but Xun is both making a good point and I'm agreeing with him

Good and Evil are very much a cultural thing. Some people think dressing indecently is evil, some people don't. Some people think eating other people is evil, some don't. (In fact, some people think eating people who want to be eaten is evil)
Some people think killing is evil. Some people think killing is sometimes evil, depending on how you go about it. Some people think killing is something that you should simply do when you feel like it.

In the end, all you are doing when you label someone "evil" is saying "this person is not like me", and all you are doing when you are agreeing with a person calling someone "evil" is being talked into thinking you dislike that person immensely.

Or, thinking that you are justified in killing him because other people say he is evil for not thinking like your government does. 

May 9, 2010 -- 12:27PM, PBN wrote:

May 9, 2010 -- 12:08PM, bone_naga wrote:

So apparently stabbing someone in the chest is nonlethal force? WTF?

not really getting involved with the conversation - but have to mirror the above.  For me (and mine) the decision to knock unconscious needs to be made prior to rolling the attack.  You either strike to kill, or strike to knock out - you don't strike, THEN decide.  For me, the latter is similar to having the player roll, THEN choosing what power (s)he used.

edited to add: and yes, I realize that approach is technically a house-rule.

Isn't this more about how you approach the story from a game mechanical point of view? To me you seem to assume the character decides what happens before making the roll, but I think the idea is that the player decides what happens after knowing the game mechanical result but before the story results are determined. In short, the DM tells the player the attack knocks that opponent down (game machanics: hit points drop to 0 or below), and then gives the player the freedom to decide on the story outcome. The player at that point can describe his attack as piercing the sword through the chest (killing the monster), or as using the flat of the blade to knock the legs from under the opponent and than giving a kick in the crotch to keep him knocked senseless for about 5 minutes (knocking the opponent unconscious).

May 9, 2010 -- 2:25PM, Kratch wrote:

I suspect you choose not to reply to it because you know I'm right, you  were already posting a lot of "you're right... but" 's

"you're right... but" is me trying to be polite. Sorry 'bout  that. Won't happen again.

May 9, 2010 -- 2:25PM, Kratch wrote:

May 9, 2010 -- 2:00PM, Qube wrote:

Premise2: murder, if there is a valid alternative, is evil.

Additionally, I have a rather long post you choose not to reply to, that demonstrates that, at least in my game world, the "valid alternative" is rarely actually a valid alternative, and certainly not practical. I suspect you choose not to reply to it because you know I'm right, you were already posting a lot of "you're right... but" 's.

no actually, its not a "you're right".
I'm asying "if there is a valid alternative". Now you're syaing you have a possible alternative (knocking unconcious) but its not valid. and then go on discussing why it is not valid.

I don't see what your point is. If the altiernative isn't valid, then its not a valid alternative, so my premisse doesn't apply.


Usually there is an alternative. if a goblin attacks you, you can knock him out, ask him what his problem was and then help him with it.

May 9, 2010 -- 2:25PM, Kratch wrote:

Again, it is NOT. The fact that it was lethal combat, combined with  the impracticality of sparing the lives of many of the  creatures your  fighting,

and why again is it impractical? is
"If a goblin attacks you, you can  knock him out, ask him what his problem was and then help him with it." not an alternative? or are you going racist on me saying , the last goblin I encountered kept attacking me, so this one obviously will do too ?

Premise2: murder, if there is a valid alternative, is evil.

I find this premise to be flawed.  In my opinion, murder is  neutral.  You can do it for Good reasons, you can do it for Evil  reasons, it can serve Good ends and Evil ends.

OK, if you find it flawed, can you give me an example where "murder, if there is a valid alternative", is not evil?

May 9, 2010 -- 6:21PM, MrCelsius wrote:

May 9, 2010 -- 4:57PM, Kratch wrote:

To be fair, I agree that murder is evil (Defining Murder as the premeditated taking of life without provocation or justification).

     That's... an odd definition, in my opinion.  I hate to be the person who pulls out Webster's, but when discussing definitions I suppose it's fair play.  Neither Merriam-Webster's nor Dictionary.com says anything about whether or not the act is provoked or justified.  Using that definition is like saying 'I agree that sex is evil (defining sex as intercourse without consent)'.  You're right that what you're describing is evil, but what you're describing isn't what the word you're using is describing.

It is a combination of Dictionary.com and Duhaime's Legal  Dictionary.

May 10, 2010 -- 12:51AM, Pluisjen wrote:

This is a very rare situation... but Xun is both making a good point and I'm agreeing with him  

Maybe you should really stop and think about that for a minute.  That's yet ANOTHER really strong indicator that you are wrong.

Good and Evil are very much a cultural thing. Some people think dressing indecently is evil, some people don't. Some people think eating other people is evil, some don't. (In fact, some people think eating people who want to be eaten is evil)

 

If this is true, then it completely invalidates your claim that killing is always evil.  Subjective good/evil means that there can never be anything that is always good or evil.

May 10, 2010 -- 6:09AM, Maxperson wrote:

If this is true, then it completely invalidates your claim that killing is always evil.  Subjective good/evil means that there can never be anything that is always good or evil.

I know. I've said many times in this thread that you can argue until you weigh an ounce (is that an expression in English? I know it is in Dutch...) but it'll never work because everyone has different ideas of Good and Evil.

It's just that I like arguing; it comes with the regeneration and the green skin

May 10, 2010 -- 4:25AM, Madfox11 wrote:

May 9, 2010 -- 12:27PM, PBN wrote:

May 9, 2010 -- 12:08PM, bone_naga wrote:

So apparently stabbing someone in the chest is nonlethal force? WTF?

not really getting involved with the conversation - but have to mirror the above.  For me (and mine) the decision to knock unconscious needs to be made prior to rolling the attack.  You either strike to kill, or strike to knock out - you don't strike, THEN decide.  For me, the latter is similar to having the player roll, THEN choosing what power (s)he used.

edited to add: and yes, I realize that approach is technically a house-rule.

Isn't this more about how you approach the story from a game mechanical point of view? To me you seem to assume the character decides what happens before making the roll, but I think the idea is that the player decides what happens after knowing the game mechanical result but before the story results are determined. In short, the DM tells the player the attack knocks that opponent down (game machanics: hit points drop to 0 or below), and then gives the player the freedom to decide on the story outcome. The player at that point can describe his attack as piercing the sword through the chest (killing the monster), or as using the flat of the blade to knock the legs from under the opponent and than giving a kick in the crotch to keep him knocked senseless for about 5 minutes (knocking the opponent unconscious).

Now we're getting into DM styles, but here's how I look at it.  The story is a DM/player collaboration.  However, the player can only affect the story through his character's actions.  He can never write out the story for my NPC's or monsters.  If I allow him to decide after the roll, he is deciding the story FOR the NPC or monster.  Therefore, the player must decide before the roll if he is going to TRY to knock the NPC/monster out or kill it.  At that point, the player has done his part in the story collaboration by telling me what his PC is going to do to affect the story and then it's my turn to interpret from his action, the die roll(if necessary) and what I know that he doesn't, how the story unfolds and tell that to the players.

May 10, 2010 -- 4:35AM, Qube wrote:

Usually there is an alternative. if a goblin attacks you, you can knock him out, ask him what his problem was and then help him with it.

You can knock out a dragon and then ask it if it will take up farming, too.  So what.  Whether or not you can knock out something and then talk to it later has absolutely no bearing on whether it is good or evil to kill it.

and why again is it impractical? is
"If a goblin attacks you, you can knock him out, ask him what his problem was and then help him with it." not an alternative? or are you going racist on me saying , the last goblin I encountered kept attacking me, so this one obviously will do too ?

Nope.  If you got shot at by an Iranian soldier, YOU can stop to ask all the other Iranian soldiers what their problem is and try to help them with it.  Me, I'm going to run or kill them.

OK, if you find it flawed, can you give me an example where "murder, if there is a valid alternative", is not evil?

I don't think murder is ever good.  However, it is not always evil and I provided an example many pages ago.  The main problem you're having is that killing goblins =/= murder.  Merely having a valid alternative to killing them will never in and of itself turn killing them into murder.

May 10, 2010 -- 6:14AM, Pluisjen wrote:

I know. I've said many times in this thread that you can argue until you weigh an ounce (is that an expression in English? I know it is in Dutch...) but it'll never work because everyone has different ideas of Good and Evil.

It's just that I like arguing; it comes with the regeneration and the green skin

LOL  If we do have that expression, I have never heard it here in America.  That said, I also believe in moral relativism on a national/cultural level, not an individual one.  Now you need to show that your nation/culture believes as general whole the same way that you do. 

It doesn't. Like I said before; I am not a part of any culture. I share very few values with any existing culture. I have some very strange beliefs.

In your mind, consider me a culture of my own. Or a nutjob. Whichever has your preference.

(I hope you at least get the idea behind the expression? This discussion is going nowhere and you continue for all eternity and never get anything useful from it... there has to an expression? I'm no good at English expressions, really)

You simply cannot use real-world ethics and morality to state that killing a goblin in D&D is an evil act. In real-world morality, good and evil are very much subjective based on cultural mores that society bases laws on.

In D&D, Good and evil are real measurable Absolutes. Killing an evil creature is not an evil act. Evil races have instinctual, cultural, and supernatural influnes on them at all times to make them evil. There are no prisons equiped in any D&D game world that are equipped to incaracerate every evil monster the PCs will encounter. There is no practical hope for reformation, and in a very real sence, the PCs will be indirectly responsible for anyone the monster kills after they let the monster go.

May 10, 2010 -- 4:35AM, Qube wrote:

I'm asying "if there is a valid alternative".

No, your Stating that there IS a valid alternative IE, the mechanics say so, and therefore, not using it is evil. That statement completely removes motives, justification, practicality and any other considerations out of the equation, and that's why your wrong here.

May 10, 2010 -- 4:35AM, Qube wrote:

Now you're syaing you have a possible alternative (knocking unconcious) but its not valid. and then go on discussing why it is not valid.

I can technically opt to walk 60 miles to and from work, it is theoretically possible, but I'm not cappable of walking 120 miles per day while still getting 8 hours of work in (plus overtime) plus sleeping to recover for the next day. Walking is technically an alternative to taking the bus, but at the same time, it's not.

May 10, 2010 -- 4:35AM, Qube wrote:

I don't see what your point is. If the altiernative isn't valid, then its not a valid alternative, so my premisse doesn't apply.

You mean the premise of a truely harmless attacker? You're dropping so many premises's that it's hard to keep track.

May 10, 2010 -- 4:35AM, Qube wrote:

Usually there is an alternative. if a goblin attacks you, you can knock him out, ask him what his problem was and then help him with it.

and why again is it impractical?

I've posted it twice and told you already I will not post it a third time because you keep refusing to acknowledge it. Check my post #773 and #789. If you want to continue any debate, acknowledge my paragraph from #773 that I quote again in #789, instead of ignoring it and then repeatedly asking me to repeat it.

May 10, 2010 -- 6:17AM, Maxperson wrote:

Now we're getting into DM styles, but here's how I look at it.  The story is a DM/player collaboration.  However, the player can only affect the story through his character's actions.  He can never write out the story for my NPC's or monsters.  If I allow him to decide after the roll, he is deciding the story FOR the NPC or monster.  Therefore, the player must decide before the roll if he is going to TRY to knock the NPC/monster out or kill it.  At that point, the player has done his part in the story collaboration by telling me what his PC is going to do to affect the story and then it's my turn to interpret from his action, the die roll(if necessary) and what I know that he doesn't, how the story unfolds and tell that to the players.

So if a player describes before the attack he is trying to knock the opponent unscious there is no problem? What do you do if that attack hits, but does not drop the opponent below 0 hit points? If you do allow the first*, and treat the hit attack as dealing normal damage then there is really no difference between my appoach and yours. Of course, if nothing happens at all if a PC went for knocking an opponent uncious, or you use some kind of non-lethal hit point system, you are using a 3E rule mechanic in 4E.

Regardless, I am merely telling you how you can implement the 4E game rule that a player can decide to deal non-lethal damage after knowing he knocked an opponent to 0 or lower without making it look (too) silly. Personally, I am not too happy with the 4E mechanicto knock opponents unconscious. I think it is too easy. On the other hand, the 3E was a bit to complicated game mechanically, even though from a story perspective it was more fun (like in RL it was much more difficult to knock somebody unconscious and hence chosing that option ment much more then it does now).

* And in 9 out of 10 times the players decide to keep opponents alive long before the first opponent drops to 0 or lower hit points.

May 10, 2010 -- 5:19AM, Kratch wrote:

May 9, 2010 -- 4:57PM, Kratch wrote:

To be fair, I agree  that murder is evil (Defining Murder as the premeditated taking of life  without provocation or justification).

     That's... an odd definition, in my opinion.  I hate to be the  person who pulls out Webster's, but when discussing definitions I  suppose it's fair play.  Neither Merriam-Webster's nor Dictionary.com  says anything about whether or not the act is provoked or justified.   Using that definition is like saying 'I agree that sex is evil (defining  sex as intercourse without consent)'.  You're right that what you're  describing is evil, but what you're describing isn't what the word  you're using is describing.

It is a combination of Dictionary.com and Duhaime's  Legal  Dictionary.

     Still odd, then, in that you  resorted to a legal dictionary's definition yet 'legal' was the only word you chose to omit therefrom.  Doing something without legal provocation or  justification is by no means the same as, as you said, doing it without any provocation or justification.  The dictionary definition means you  took a life in response to a provocation or with a reason in violation  of the law, which is merely Chaotic.  The definition you offered means  you took a life for the lulz, which is definitely Evil.  There's a  difference.  Just the same, I agreed that 'murder' is too law-centric  for my purposes.  That's why I amended my statements to 'killing'.  I do  not feel that killing any person is inherently evil in nature.  It can  be evil, but it can also be good.

May 10, 2010 -- 4:35AM, Qube wrote:

OK, if you find it flawed, can you give me an example where "murder, if there is a valid alternative", is not evil?

     I was mostly questioning your definition of 'a valid alternative' and the premise that knocking someone out is always thus.  I believe that you were suggesting that KO is a valid alternative to Kill because they both take the subject out of the fight.  The problem is that they are not equally effective as solutions go.  Even assuming the unconscious foe won't get back up, there's still the matter of what to do with said foe.  If you've got all the time in the world to take that subject to a legal system which you know will not acquit the subject, will not ever release the subject from prison, and cannot be escaped by any legal or illegal means, then you've got a valid alternative to killing that person in that it is just as good.  If you don't have all of that and the individual going free would mean the death or harm of one or more innocents which you do not want on your conscience, then anything short of eliminating the person as completely from existence is not a valid alternative.

May 10, 2010 -- 10:31AM, MrCelsius wrote:

I do  not feel that killing any person is inherently evil in nature.  It can  be evil, but it can also be good.

I agree, and have even said as much a few pages back. It is the motivations behind the killing that dictate good vs evil (vs neutral).

May 10, 2010 -- 10:38AM, Kratch wrote:

May 10, 2010 -- 10:31AM, MrCelsius wrote:

I do not feel that killing any person is inherently evil in nature.  It can be evil, but it can also be good.

I agree, and have even said as much a few pages back. It is the motivations behind the killing that dictate good vs evil (vs neutral).

Religion and Culture have a huge part as well. If you believe in the Bible then you are a follower of the Ten Commandments and one is Thou Shalt not Kill. There is inbetween on this one, it is not Thou Shalt not Kill except in this or that situation.

May 10, 2010 -- 10:47AM, XunValDorl_of_HouseKilsek wrote:

If you believe in the Bible then you are a follower of the Ten Commandments and one is Thou Shalt not Kill.

Actually, in each of the instances in which the Ten Commandments appears in the Bible, it uses the word "tirtsach" (תרצח: tav-resh-tzadik-chet), which means "murder", not "kill", which makes sense, since there are times when you are comanded to kill (such as poisoners, and in punishment for certain transgressions).

The word "kill" in Hebrew is "harag" (הרג: hay-resh-gimel), which is not used in the Ten Commandments.  (It's the word used to describe when Moses killed the Egyptian, and when the Pharaoh sought to kill Moses in retaliation -- Exodus 2:12-15.)  So the Bible is unlikely to be much help here, and, in fact, the commandment is indeed saying you can kill or not kill in certain situations.

Before 4E, "evil" was simply a quantifiable measurable description, as was "good". The only times it became an issue at all were with Paladins, protection from X spells, and so on. 4E's departure from alignment has rendered the entire premise almost completely moot, with the exception of PC alignment and the symmetry of that PC with the rest of the party.

Evil PCs can coexist within a good party, and probably do so easier than a good PC can coexist within an evil party, but we're talking about the norm and not the exceptions to the norm. Outside of isolated tales from other posters on this forum, I have only seen a single example of an evil PC happily coexist within a predominantly good group, and that has been over a 24 year stretch of DMing for a very diverse cross-section of players from various parts of the world, to include RPGA groups, FLGS groups, pick-up games with total strangers, and home-based groups of friends and family members. Of all of those multiple-dozens of groups, I have seen only 1 player be able to pull it off flawlessly. Just one.

I realize that my experiences are in no way refelctive of everyone (or anyone) else's experiences, but I have to assume that over a 24 year stretch of DMing for so diverse a group of players, I have come into contact with just about every type of gamer that exists in some form or fashion, and for only one of those multi-hundred players to be able to pull it off, to me, speaks volumes. When the PHB suggests against playing evil PCs, I feel it is 100% correct in doing so. The devs, like many of us, are long-time players and DMs, and have seen what can happen when someone decides to play an evil PC and can't pull it off. It is disruptive, annoying, distracting, and typically not worth the hassle for the rest of the group.

Remember, now, I'm talking about the norm and not the exceptions to the norm. I have no doubt that there are many players who can pull it off without a hitch, but I have only ever had the pleasure of DMing for one of them. Obviously the devs agree with my conclusions, and have geared the game to be run without evil PCs, and even put in stipulations about them being in your games. They're not saying that you cannot do so, but they are suggesting against strongly, and I agree wholeheartedly.

All that being said, I see no problem allowing your PCs to attempt to play evil PCs if they so wish. It might turn out that you end up with one of those rare players who can do it right and do it proud. If it turns out that they cannot do so, it's really not that big of a deal to swap alignments or simply create a new character, should the old one be so closely tied to its alignment that swapping alignment would ruin the entire concept of said character.

May 10, 2010 -- 10:47AM, XunValDorl_of_HouseKilsek wrote:

May 10, 2010 -- 10:38AM, Kratch wrote:

May 10, 2010 -- 10:31AM, MrCelsius wrote:

I do not feel that killing any person is inherently evil in nature.  It can be evil, but it can also be good.

I agree, and have even said as much a few pages back. It is the motivations behind the killing that dictate good vs evil (vs neutral).

Religion and Culture have a huge part as well. If you believe in the Bible then you are a follower of the Ten Commandments and one is Thou Shalt not Kill. There is inbetween on this one, it is not Thou Shalt not Kill except in this or that situation.

Even though I actually happen to largely agree with much of what you have said this time around (which REALLY weirds me out), as I also consider killing to be an inherently "evil" act, or at the very least an act which should never be considered good (even when it is necessary), you are wrong on this point. The commandant, in its English translation, is "though shalt not kill." This, however, is a fairly poor translation of the original Hebrew iteration. The statement "though shalt not murder" is far more accurate. I say this because shortly after the commandment "though shalt not kill" is given, that book of the old testament then goes on to list a number of situations in which you may kill a person without breaking that commandment. For example, according to the old testament, you have not broken any of the ten commandments if you kill a thief who breaks into your house during the night. So, it terms of religion, and belief in the Bible, there are a number of inbetween's on this one...

I run evil campaigns all the time, both in 3e and 4e. There really isn't much problem. The problem is when people play stupid evil. That's when character deliberately do evil things even when it isn't int their long term interest to do so. But for the most part, evil campaigns rock. I just did an Evil Willow campaign (based on the movie (Willow), where the players work for the evil queen. Worked great. Lots of fun. Totally practical.

May 10, 2010 -- 6:35AM, Pluisjen wrote:

It doesn't. Like I said before; I am not a part of any culture. I share very few values with any existing culture. I have some very strange beliefs.

In your mind, consider me a culture of my own. Or a nutjob. Whichever has your preference.

Nutjob works

Seriously, though, you ARE a part of your culture, even if you are a rebel fringe of it.  No one is a culture in and of themselves.

May 10, 2010 -- 6:39AM, Madfox11 wrote:

So if a player describes before the attack he is trying to knock the opponent unscious there is no problem? What do you do if that attack hits, but does not drop the opponent below 0 hit points?

Describe a failure to perform his stated goal.  He's only telling me what he is TRYING to do, not what he is actually doing.

 Personally, I am not too happy with the 4E mechanicto knock opponents unconscious. I think it is too easy. On the other hand, the 3E was a bit to complicated game mechanically, even though from a story perspective it was more fun (like in RL it was much more difficult to knock somebody unconscious and hence chosing that option ment much more then it does now).

Same here, which is why I changed it.  However, we're not discussing house rules, so I didn't bring that part of it up

* And in 9 out of 10 times the players decide to keep opponents alive long before the first opponent drops to 0 or lower hit points.

That's the desired goal, yes.  However, it's not always feasible.  Monsters/NPCs get described differently as their hit points reach zero.  The players can use those descriptions to decide when they wish to try and knock the monster/NPC out.  That doesn't mean that there isn't risk that they will try to early and fail, or not try in time and kill the monster/NPC by mistake.  Fog of war.

May 10, 2010 -- 1:43PM, Maxperson wrote:

May 10, 2010 -- 6:35AM, Pluisjen wrote:

It doesn't. Like I said before; I am not a part of any culture. I share very few values with any existing culture. I have some very strange beliefs.

In your mind, consider me a culture of my own. Or a nutjob. Whichever has your preference.

Nutjob works

Seriously, though, you ARE a part of your culture, even if you are a rebel fringe of it.  No one is a culture in and of themselves.

No problem; you wouldn't be the first one And yeah, I have a few parts of my own culture I guess. And a few parts of yours as well. Ok, I'll buy "fringe". Far, far fringe

May 10, 2010 -- 6:28AM, Maxperson wrote:

You can knock out a dragon and then ask it if it will take up farming, too.  So what.  Whether or not you can knock out something and then talk to it later has absolutely no bearing on whether it is good or evil to kill it.

you know, I'm advocating right the opposite. if you can knock out a dragon and make it help people instead of battling them - I don't see why killing it wouldn't be an act of evil.

Nope.  If you got shot at by an Iranian soldier, YOU can stop to ask all the other Iranian soldiers what their problem is and try to help them with it.  Me, I'm going to run or kill them.

That's a fault against the axiom. Me, I'm going to shoot the Iranian, knocking him unconsious in the process. - and my concious will be 100% clear.

The main problem you're having is that killing goblins =/= murder.

so ... the main problem is that I'm not a racist?

There is no practical hope for reformation

I disagree with you. So does the succubus paladin.

No, your Stating that there IS a valid alternative IE, the mechanics say so, and therefore, not using it is evil. That statement completely removes motives, justification, practicality and any other considerations out of the equation, and that's why your wrong here.

no, sorry, I'm not stathing that there isn't a valid aternative. I'm saying that my train of logic only appies IF there is a valid aternative. so discussing my train of logic in the senario of no valid aternative is dumb.

Walking is technically an alternative to taking the bus, but at the same time, it's not.

hence the word valid. walking wouldn't be a valid aternative.

You're dropping so many premises's that it's hard to keep track.

That's because I'm not pigheaded. if I'm being pursuaded, I'm going to change my oppinion.

I've posted it twice and told you already I will not post it a third time because you keep refusing to acknowledge it. Check my post #773 and #789. If you want to continue any debate, acknowledge my paragraph from #773 that I quote again in #789, instead of ignoring it and then repeatedly asking me to repeat it.

even though I don't recall them exaclty, from what I do recall you kind of travel in a darker world then the one I'm used to.

Where I travel, Goblins have a reason to attack. Like in keep of the shadowfell, they are (indirectly) incited by the BBEG. Talking to them could work, calming them down and even provide valuable intel about the BBEG.

In my personal opinion I liked it better when Alignment had mechanics attached to it, but now it's like Hocus said about alignment being pretty much a moot point now. I think it would be better if the designers went more for personality archtypes instead of alignment.

So you go around and let all the enemies not die...  At some point someone would pick up on that.  There would be someone smart enough to get into a fight they know they wont die of, infiltrate your home land because you think they are reformed, and ruin everything for everyone.

That's a fault against the axiom. Me, I'm going to shoot the Iranian, knocking him unconsious in the process. - and my concious will be 100% clear.

You know a magical spot to shoot people that knocks them unconscious with no effort?  Also anyone you shot and didn't kill would probably have to be left baking in the sun since going to retrieve the enemy would probably put your people in an ambush of some sort.  And then it could be argued that the person surviving is only taken to a torture chamber to get information from them...

Where I travel, Goblins have a reason to attack. Like in keep of the shadowfell, they are (indirectly) incited by the BBEG. Talking to them could work, calming them down and even provide valuable intel about the BBEG.

The BBEG you intend to go fight and/or kill hope to redeem?

In a situation that would make sense to take an enemy alive, sure no problem.  A mission specifically trying to capture someone for information, or similar sure.  But if I am attacked by a group of people whose only goal in life is to end mine, then you better believe I will end theirs without remorse.

May 10, 2010 -- 2:14PM, Qube wrote:

you know, I'm advocating right the opposite. if you can knock out a dragon and make it help people instead of battling them - I don't see why killing it wouldn't be an act of evil

Yes.  I am well aware of your absurdly wrong position.

 That's a fault against the axiom. Me, I'm going to shoot the Iranian, knocking him unconsious in the process. - and my concious will be 100% clear.

I suppose he would be unconscious for the few minutes it takes him to DIE.

 so ... the main problem is that I'm not a racist?

If that's what you think I said, then oooooookaaay.

May 10, 2010 -- 10:58AM, Hocus-Smokus wrote:

Before 4E, "evil" was simply a quantifiable measurable description, as was "good". The only times it became an issue at all were with Paladins, protection from X spells, and so on. 4E's departure from alignment has rendered the entire premise almost completely moot, with the exception of PC alignment and the symmetry of that PC with the rest of the party.

Evil PCs can coexist within a good party, and probably do so easier than a good PC can coexist within an evil party, but we're talking about the norm and not the exceptions to the norm. Outside of isolated tales from other posters on this forum, I have only seen a single example of an evil PC happily coexist within a predominantly good group, and that has been over a 24 year stretch of DMing for a very diverse cross-section of players from various parts of the world, to include RPGA groups, FLGS groups, pick-up games with total strangers, and home-based groups of friends and family members. Of all of those multiple-dozens of groups, I have seen only 1 player be able to pull it off flawlessly. Just one.

I realize that my experiences are in no way refelctive of everyone (or anyone) else's experiences, but I have to assume that over a 24 year stretch of DMing for so diverse a group of players, I have come into contact with just about every type of gamer that exists in some form or fashion, and for only one of those multi-hundred players to be able to pull it off, to me, speaks volumes. When the PHB suggests against playing evil PCs, I feel it is 100% correct in doing so. The devs, like many of us, are long-time players and DMs, and have seen what can happen when someone decides to play an evil PC and can't pull it off. It is disruptive, annoying, distracting, and typically not worth the hassle for the rest of the group.

Remember, now, I'm talking about the norm and not the exceptions to the norm. I have no doubt that there are many players who can pull it off without a hitch, but I have only ever had the pleasure of DMing for one of them. Obviously the devs agree with my conclusions, and have geared the game to be run without evil PCs, and even put in stipulations about them being in your games. They're not saying that you cannot do so, but they are suggesting against strongly, and I agree wholeheartedly.

All that being said, I see no problem allowing your PCs to attempt to play evil PCs if they so wish. It might turn out that you end up with one of those rare players who can do it right and do it proud. If it turns out that they cannot do so, it's really not that big of a deal to swap alignments or simply create a new character, should the old one be so closely tied to its alignment that swapping alignment would ruin the entire concept of said character.

Thank you, Hocus Smoke, I think you have mirrored my own opinion. Right now, though, I am more reluctant to have someone try to play evil.

Looking at the change from the previous edition, I think the Unaligned addition leaves room for an more ambigous character without the need for a player to choose the evil alignment. The removal of the Neutral axium and making Lawful and Chaos into one part of the sides (LG and CE) instead of an axis was something that I liked. Getting rid of the whole "grid" and making "True Neutral" into more of a undecided instead of a hard nosed inbetweener a refreshing change.

Unaligned has a lot of room to wriggle, instead of being like "True Neutral" where you walked a tight rope of understanding both "sides." This makes the advent of playing an Evil character less likely to be an issue compared to the "grid" in the previous edition.

May 10, 2010 -- 2:14PM, Qube wrote:

That's a fault against the axiom. Me, I'm going to shoot the Iranian, knocking him unconsious in the process. - and my concious will be 100% clear.

Well since stabbing people in the chest with a sword is apparently a nonlethal attack (I'll remember to use that defense in court), I guess you can just KO people with bullets too.

May 10, 2010 -- 6:13PM, bone_naga wrote:

May 10, 2010 -- 2:14PM, Qube wrote:

That's a fault against the axiom. Me, I'm going to shoot the Iranian, knocking him unconsious in the process. - and my concious will be 100% clear.

Well since stabbing people in the chest with a sword is apparently a nonlethal attack (I'll remember to use that defense in court), I guess you can just KO people with bullets too.

And apparently with his conscious being 100% clear, it's going to make him an airhead.

May 10, 2010 -- 3:26PM, MahName_Is wrote:

That's a fault against the axiom. Me, I'm going to shoot the Iranian, knocking him unconsious in the process. - and my concious will be 100% clear.

You know a magical spot to shoot people that knocks them unconscious with no effort?

This is kind of the point of the axiom. Yes, a PC knows of such a point. (no effort is incorrect. no more effort then killing them)

May 10, 2010 -- 3:26PM, MahName_Is wrote:

Also anyone you shot and didn't kill would probably have to be left baking in the sun since going to retrieve the enemy would probably put your people in an ambush of some sort.  And then it could be argued that the person surviving is only taken to a torture chamber to get information from them...

mmm ... so you're kind of saying that there is no valid alternative to murdering them?

Where I travel, Goblins have a reason to attack. Like in keep of the shadowfell, they are (indirectly) incited by the BBEG. Talking to them could work, calming them down and even provide valuable intel about the BBEG.

The BBEG you intend to go fight and/or kill hope to redeem?

In a situation that would make sense to take an enemy alive, sure no problem.  A mission specifically trying to capture someone for information, or similar sure.  But if I am attacked by a group of people whose only goal in life is to end mine, then you better believe I will end theirs without remorse.

Sure, but that's because you don't have a valid alternative.

Yes.  I am well aware of your absurdly wrong position

And I am well aware of your absurdly wrong position

I suppose he would be unconscious for the few minutes it takes him to DIE.

nope. unconcious, and after a short rest he'll wake up. battered but alive.

Well since stabbing people in the chest with a sword is apparently a nonlethal attack (I'll remember to use that defense in court), I guess you can just KO people with bullets too.

hey, not only bullet. remember that PCs could fire ballistas at enemies or alchemist fires, knocking him out. So napalm or rockets woudn't be a problem too

edit: but be sure to add to your defense "PC in DnD can do it, so this means that it can be done IRL too."

Debates on good and evil are so great.  No debate can just keep going and going such as one that is over moral and ethics.  Great job guys14 more pages and this thread make 100 pages. 

Evil isn't impractical, it's just hard to make an evil campaign.

Most evil characters tend to have a chaotic evil type of outlook. However, if you're a lawful evil character, with a set goal and agenda, that can be trusted by others to do that, then it's totally doable.

Lots of examples of this exist.

The best would probably be the mob.
They kill people, steal, rob, cheat, lie, etc. However, they still follow a set of rules of their own making, which prevent them from getting caught. They use intelligence in their evil acts.

Instead of random acts of violence, you get calculated hits, or instead of random robberies, you get organized crime with minimal risk to all parties involved.

Chaotic evil is impractical.
Lawful evil just requires a different campaign, different goals, and an open minded DM that can ad-lib a lot of stuff, and doesn't mind that sort of setting.

May 10, 2010 -- 2:14PM, Qube wrote:

If you can knock out a dragon and make it help people instead of battling them - I don't see why killing it wouldn't be an act of evil.

If you can knock out the dragon and PERSUADE it to help people - and have a very high probability that it will actually stay reformed - then maybe.

If you can knock out the dragon and enslave it... evil.

If you can knock out the dragon so it can recover and sneak up behind you later... stupid.

If you can knock out the dragon, declare victory, leave, and next week the dragon is eating the peasants again... I can't decide if that is stupid, evil, or both, but it's a safe bet that word will get around that you don't get the job done.

May 11, 2010 -- 7:46AM, StareAtTheSuN wrote:

The best would probably be the mob.
They kill people, steal, rob, cheat, lie, etc. However, they still follow a set of rules of their own making, which prevent them from getting caught. They use intelligence in their evil acts.

Instead of random acts of violence, you get calculated hits, or instead of random robberies, you get organized crime with minimal risk to all parties involved.

"Don't kid yourself.  It's not that organized."

The mob doesn't really follow any rules, save those that keep you from getting whacked, which basically amounts to "Don't do anything to endanger the take of the guy above you."

It's essentially a multilevel marketing scheme where everybody cheats each other as much and as often as possible, with a level of plausible deniability built in to protect the highest echelons.

Read Donnie Brasco or watch Goodfellas.  (Goodfellas is only based on a true story, but Donnie Brasco is the real deal, written by the actual undercover agent.)  That's the mob.  Lower level guys are expected to do time and keep their mouths shut about their bosses' involvement.  They don't take marching orders or get assigned jobs by their higher ups.  They basically go out and do random robberies, and then they pay a fee to the bosses, no different from the extortion that honest businesses pay to protection rackets.  They take all the risk and reap the least rewards, just like Amway salespeople.  Very few people have an opportunity to move up in the ranks, and those that do have more to thank from nepotism than from any kind of merit-based system.  Everybody steals from and lies to everybody else, constantly, and only greed and fear of retribution keep the whole thing from collapsing into a bloodblath.

The idea of the highly organized, honorable family business as portrayed in the Godfather is a myth.  There is nothing lawful about the mafia, at any level or by any definition of lawful.

Although the Godfather style mafia does make for great evil DnD campaigns (in my experience), so I suppose the real world mob's practices are irrelevant.  Still, it is a misconception that must be dispelled so that this stupid American romance of organized crime can die.

May 11, 2010 -- 8:04PM, warrl wrote:

May 10, 2010 -- 2:14PM, Qube wrote:

If you can knock out a dragon and make it help people instead of battling them - I don't see why killing it wouldn't be an act of evil.

If you can knock out the dragon and PERSUADE it to help people - and have a very high probability that it will actually stay reformed - then maybe.

If you can knock out the dragon and enslave it... evil.

If you can knock out the dragon so it can recover and sneak up behind you later... stupid.

If you can knock out the dragon, declare victory, leave, and next week the dragon is eating the peasants again... I can't decide if that is stupid, evil, or both, but it's a safe bet that word will get around that you don't get the job done.

Though you make a good point, doesn't that make the dragon kind of stupid too?
he kills, so a band of adventurers comes by and kicks his *ss, but showing mercy as they believe he can change. if he kills again, what does he think will happen?

Basically you're saying 'what if the dragon lied to you', right? Then, what to do with a dragon pleeding for mercy when he's bloodied? (a creature pleeding for mercy could also be lying).
Killing an unarmed goblin pleeding for mercy ... how's that 'good' ?

May 11, 2010 -- 10:31PM, Qube wrote:

Though you make a good point, doesn't that make the dragon kind of stupid too?

No.  Dragons are king of the hill.  They can't know that PC quality people are going to show up.

 if he kills again, what does he think will happen?

He'll be far away from the adventurers and get away with it, and if they DO show up, he runs away and kills OTHER people. 

Basically you're saying 'what if the dragon lied to you', right? Then, what to do with a dragon pleeding for mercy when he's bloodied? (a creature pleeding for mercy could also be lying).
Killing an unarmed goblin pleeding for mercy ... how's that 'good' ?

1) You can't take the dragon anywhere to enforce it's agreement.  You CAN make a goblin stick to its agreement.

2) A dragon will devestate whole cities.  A goblin will devestate a farmer.

Due to the dragon's immense capacity to cause destruction AND its ego AND its intelligence, you can't possibly take its word.  At that point you have two choices.  Kill it for the greater good of the people, or let it go on to massacre hundreds or thousands.  Killing it is the good act, letting it go would be evil.

May 11, 2010 -- 10:53PM, Maxperson wrote:

 if he kills again, what does he think will happen?

He'll be far away from the adventurers and get away with it, and if they DO show up, he runs away and kills OTHER people. 

why was running away not an option in the first encounter? what has changed? has it suddenly come to some new-found wisdom saying 'if creatures can get me bloodied, they might be able to kill me'

Because if so, I'll reitterate that the dragon is stupid - because he didn't realize that in the first place.

1) You can't take the dragon anywhere to enforce it's  agreement.  You CAN make a goblin stick to its agreement.

How do you figure? Why can't you take the dragon anywhere to enforce it's  agreement?

Due to the dragon's immense capacity to cause destruction AND its  ego AND its intelligence, you can't possibly take its word.

I really don't like that reasoning. Mostly because you're saying that its an act of good to kill stronger people if you don't trust them. By that reasoning that would mean that its an act of good to whipe the US from the map ...

Nothing would stop the dragon from attacking the village, but nothing stops the US from saying "hey, we got some intel saying that village has weapons of mass destruction"

May 12, 2010 -- 12:55AM, Qube wrote:

I really don't like that reasoning. Mostly because you're saying that its an act of good to kill stronger people if you don't trust them. By that reasoning that would mean that its an act of good to whipe the US from the map ...

Nothing would stop the dragon from attacking the village, but nothing stops the US from saying "hey, we got some intel saying that village has weapons of mass destruction"

Isn't that exactly what is happening in RL? People/nations that trust the USA have no problems with the USA. People/nations that really distrust the USA want to whipe the USA from the map and would consider it a good act (in as far as they think a nation is represented by its citizens).

Mind you, I agree with Qube that an exalted* good person would give the dragon a 2nd chance, but fool them once and all bets are off...

* To reintroduce a term from 3E which in a way made sense.

Read Joe Abercrombie or George RR Martin to see how an "evil" campaign would go down. Or Mugen from Samurai Champloo.

The real issue with "evil" alignments is that the whole alignment system is crap to begin with. You don't get to be "good" just because you plop it down on your character sheet. It's a GUIDE, a marking stone to help you RP your character. Then it's used as a shield by characters who think that just because they're good on paper means they can follow the easiest solution to any problem the DM throws at themselves and feel like a hero.

Everyone's fine with a Paladin interrogating an orc or goblin to get information about the BBEG, but what about if the messenger is a small child? A small child who has been brainwashed to follow the BBEG to the death in a religious fervor? Would the Paladin be able to justify torturing a child if it's the only way to stop the greater evil?

In RL there's no fine line between good and evil. "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" they say, and to many of the so-called terrorists around the world they're simply fighting the good fight against evil imperialist empires invading their homeland and raping them of their resources. They justify killing civilians as the only method available to them to fulfill their noble goal.

On the other side of the coin, Western nations justify butchering people's husbands and sons because they're "terrorists out to kill innocent citizens." Our leaders justify torturing them as the only way to "fight the war on terror." They brush off civilian casualties as "mere collateral in the fight against evil." They blame the civil war that ensues from their toppling a strongman and gutting his government as "an inevitable conflict" due to "deep-seated historical animosities."

The reality is that there are evil people on both sides of a conflict, and good people who are convinced into playing along. Which side is good and which side is evil depends almost entirely on where you stand.


Why doesn't that reflect itself in campaigns? Because many people don't think thats fun. They just want to roll up their sleeves and get into some old-fashioned monster slaying, then lug all their stuff to the market at the end of the day and bathe in coin, drink, and women. Making empathetic bad guys, sewing ulterior motives into the party's benefactors; those are things that some player's aren't interested in (and many DMs aren't either). Morally ambiguous campaigns (true neutral/evil campaigns) are harder to craft, and not casual enough for many players






Tl;dr: Alignments are nothing more than a RP aid that are used to dumb-down and simplify campaigns. Just because the comicbook-style "slay the bad guy and be showered in praise from adoring fans" is the kind of campaign you like, don't denigrate those who want something grittier and more morally ambiguous.

May 12, 2010 -- 3:08AM, Garanth wrote:

Why doesn't that reflect itself in campaigns? Because many people don't think thats fun. They just want to roll up their sleeves and get into some old-fashioned monster slaying, then lug all their stuff to the market at the end of the day and bathe in coin, drink, and women. Making empathetic bad guys, sewing ulterior motives into the party's benefactors; those are things that some player's aren't interested in (and many DMs aren't either). Morally ambiguous campaigns (true neutral/evil campaigns) are harder to craft, and not casual enough for many players

Such campaigns can be exceedingly fun, if and only if, everyone is on board. But such campaigns can be incredably difficult on the DM, and really, the play group can't allow themselves to get bogged down so much by "What can X alignment do/not do?", they need a solid idea/agreement on alignment going in.

May 12, 2010 -- 12:55AM, Qube wrote:

why was running away not an option in the first encounter? what has changed? has it suddenly come to some new-found wisdom saying 'if creatures can get me bloodied, they might be able to kill me'

You know.  I went back and looked and I don't see where I said it wasn't an option.  Dragons aren't stupid.  If your dragons are, then there's really nothing that I can do about it.  In my games, however, if the PCs kick the crap out of the dragon and get it to bloodied without much trouble, the dragon will realize this.

Because if so, I'll reitterate that the dragon is stupid - because he didn't realize that in the first place.

Your dragons, maybe.

How do you figure? Why can't you take the dragon anywhere to enforce it's agreement?

Oh, I'm sorry.  I didn't realize that you gamed with cranes and semi trucks and could move dragons.  I also didn't realize that every town and city in your world had groups of PC strength NPCs who have nothing better to do than babysit captured dragons.  My bad.

I really don't like that reasoning. Mostly because you're saying that its an act of good to kill stronger people if you don't trust them.

 
Noooo.  Once again you seem incapable of understanding things.  Clearly they didn't trust the goblin, but I didn't say it would be a good act to kill it.  Go back and re-think things for a while.  Maybe it will come to you.

By that reasoning that would mean that its an act of good to whipe the US from the map ...

LOL  Wrong.  If you're making a joke, that was pretty funny.  If you seriously believe that my logic leads to this, that's pretty sad,

Nothing would stop the dragon from attacking the village, but nothing stops the US from saying "hey, we got some intel saying that village has weapons of mass destruction"

Nothing except 60 years of history where we didn't wipe out Russia, China, India, North Korea, Pakistan, Iraq(WMD's were the excuse, not the reason), Israel, France, England, Libya, Albania, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Iran, Japan, Serbia, Bulgaria, Chile, Cuba, Ethiopia, Egypt, Indonesia, Laos, Romania, South Africa, Sudan, Syria, Taiwan, Thailand, Viatnam and others.

Get a clue.

May 12, 2010 -- 2:37AM, Madfox11 wrote:

Mind you, I agree with Qube that an exalted* good person would give the dragon a 2nd chance, but fool them once and all bets are off...

* To reintroduce a term from 3E which in a way made sense.

Why do you believe that "exalted" = stupid?  I refuse to believe that being "exalted" makes you a fool.  Good =/= dumb.

Likewise, dumb =/= enough respect for life to avoid sentencing every foe you ever encounter to death. So yes, an exalted hero might attempt to give a dragon a chance before summery execution.

By the way:

Due to the dragon's immense capacity to cause destruction AND its  ego  AND its intelligence, you can't possibly take its word.

This statement does lead to the potential conclusion that it would be a good act to wipe America off the map. America has an immense capacity to cause destruction (see Afghanistan, two Iraq wars, and so on and so forth). America's populous is often stereotyped as having a massive ego (see the typical "American tourist" stereotype). While I would not go so far as to say that this stereotype is a typical representation of American's in general, this stereotype is often experientially bolstered by the encounters that many of us non-American's have had with American's on our soil, and by the public speeches given by many American officals. America has proven itself to be cunning (see its justification of the Iraq war). And, moreover, America has proven itself to often be incapable of keeping its own word (see the historical reason why Al-Quaida hates America so much. America originally trained and armed the ur-roots of that organization when they thought it would best serve their interests. They then revoked that support, and left them in the cold, when they decided they were no longer interested in that organization's struggle. Not that I think Al-Quaida should be supported. In fact, I don't think the ur-roots of that organization should have been supported either. But America has a bad history of getting involved in struggles over seas, and then leaving people who came to depend on them in the proverbial cold. I mean, you want another example? Look what happened to the Kuwaitis during the Gulf War). So if those three qualities make an entity deserving of death, it is very possible to claim that America is deserving of death...

Nothing except 60 years of history where we didn't wipe out Russia,  China, India, North Korea, Pakistan, Iraq(WMD's were the excuse, not the  reason), Israel, France, England, Libya, Albania, Bosnia, Herzegovina,  Iran, Japan, Serbia, Bulgaria, Chile, Cuba, Ethiopia, Egypt, Indonesia,  Laos, Romania, South Africa, Sudan, Syria, Taiwan, Thailand, Viatnam and  others.

Get a clue.

Indeed, lets talk about clues. Here are a couple. America didn't wipe out Russia because military intelligence suggested that the attempt to do so might very well cause the destruction of America. America doesn't wipe out China because the two countries are economically tied together, and because there is a good Chance that a war with China might irrevocably ruin both America's economy and power (China is not a weak enemy). America fought North Korea, like they fought Vietnam, and failed to be able to secure a solid victory. In the process of the Vietnamese war Americans were responsible for horrible atrocities perpetrated against Vietnamese, so it is a terrible example of American ethics on the world stage (it is, in fact, an example of quite the opposite). And America doesn't destroy Israel because American and Israeli intrests in the middle east often align. Israel is one of the few "westernized" countries in that region of the world. As for the others, we live in a day and age where "unauthorized" or "unwarranted" aggression earns the ire of the world's "super-powers." Attacking Afghanistan, which was certainly a warranted act of aggression, managed to cause a lot of Anti-American sentiment on the world stage. Attacking Iraq, which America argued was a warranted act of aggression, earned quite a bit more ire. What do you think would happen if America went around destroying countries willy-nilly? I don't think the term "world war," with most of the world aligned against America, would be unlikely.

And yet, despite all these checks and balances that restrict American actions, America has still been responsible for such relatively recent (destructive) actions such as the Iraq war, the Vietnam war, and a number of microcosmic atrocities in the process. America still used an unverifiable claim to justify a war that, to many, seems like little more than a grudge match between itself and Iraq. If getting soundly trounced by a group of adventurers, and then offered alliance and a peaceful truce instead of death, as well as a sound promise of death if that truce is broken, is abstracted to the point where someone can claim that there is nothing to stop the dragon from breaking its word, and there are no checks and balances in place against future aggression by the dragon, then it can certainly be claimed (and equally abstracted) that America can not keep its word, and has no checks and balances in place to prevent American aggression, as well. Of course, the truth is that both have checks and balances in place to stop aggression, and that in both cases those checks and balances sometimes fail. But if the potential failure of those checks and balances is enough to warrant a thing's destruction then one CAN claim that America has earned its own destruction...

Which isn't to say that I think America should be destroyed. But the way you are trying to brush off Qube's arguments is not fair. He has a point. His point is not a flimsy one.

May 10, 2010 -- 2:14PM, Qube wrote:

May 10, 2010 -- 6:28AM, Maxperson wrote:

You can knock out a dragon and then ask it if it will take up farming, too.  So what.  Whether or not you can knock out something and then talk to it later has absolutely no bearing on whether it is good or evil to kill it.

you know, I'm advocating right the opposite. if you can knock out a dragon and make it help people instead of battling them - I don't see why killing it wouldn't be an act of evil.

That's a HUGE "If", and an incredibly dangerous one, depending on how difficult it was to take the dragon down to begin with. A matter of terrain or bad timing or a matter of luck could sway a follow-up confrontation in the dragon's favour and then you will die (because the dragon may not be so foolish). However, your comments to this point have suggested that if you don't take such a chance, if you don't spare the dragon, for the simple fact that you are able to due to the mechanics, then your evil. But this idea is absurd.

May 10, 2010 -- 2:14PM, Qube wrote:

The main problem you're having is that killing goblins =/= murder.

so ... the main problem is that I'm not a racist?

Remove "goblins" from the equation. Killing =/= murder. You have already acknowledged that sometimes killing is nesscessary, you just don't think it ever is in DnD because of the "knock out" mechanic. You feel that the mechanic trumps character motivation and practicality when determining whether an action is "evil" or "good" (not to mention you seem to lack a middle ground. you have repeatedly taken someone's argument that killing is not an evil act (the motives determine that) to be the same as claiming that killing is a good act, but they aren't the same unless you honestly believe that actions can only be one of the two (at which point I need to ask, is eating my breakfast ceral in the morning an evil act or a good one?).

May 10, 2010 -- 2:14PM, Qube wrote:

There is no practical hope for reformation

I disagree with you. So does the succubus paladin.

key word is practical.

May 10, 2010 -- 2:14PM, Qube wrote:

No, your Stating that there IS a valid alternative IE, the mechanics say so, and therefore, not using it is evil. That statement completely removes motives, justification, practicality and any other considerations out of the equation, and that's why your wrong here.

no, sorry, I'm not stathing that there isn't a valid aternative. I'm saying that my train of logic only appies IF there is a valid aternative. so discussing my train of logic in the senario of no valid aternative is dumb.

But you always follow that "If there is a valid alternative" by claiming there is always a valid alternative because the mechanics grant one. You have not acknowledged that that alternative doesn't always exist due to practicality, or that motivations (and not just evil motives) may overrule that alternative as an option.

May 10, 2010 -- 2:14PM, Qube wrote:

Walking is technically an alternative to taking the bus, but at the same time, it's not.

hence the word valid. walking wouldn't be a valid aternative.

Just as Sparing a life via the "knock out" mechanic isn't always a valid alternative, contrary to your arguements thus far.

May 10, 2010 -- 2:14PM, Qube wrote:

You're dropping so many premises's that it's hard to keep track.

That's because I'm not pigheaded. if I'm being pursuaded, I'm going to change my oppinion.

As your main opinion hasn't changed (killing is evil and all DnD characters that kill are evil because a nonlethal alternative exists in the knock out mechanic... if this has changed, you haven't made the change clear), it just looks like moving goalposts.

May 10, 2010 -- 2:14PM, Qube wrote:

I've posted it twice and told you already I will not post it a third time because you keep refusing to acknowledge it. Check my post #773 and #789. If you want to continue any debate, acknowledge my paragraph from #773 that I quote again in #789, instead of ignoring it and then repeatedly asking me to repeat it.

even though I don't recall them exaclty, from what I do recall you kind of travel in a darker world then the one I'm used to.

I gave the post numbers, so if you didn't recall, you were clearly able to go read them.

Anyways, that was my point, that you can not claim an action exists, or is a valid alternative, when whether it is valid or not is largely campaign dependant.

May 10, 2010 -- 2:14PM, Qube wrote:

Where I travel, Goblins have a reason to attack. Like in keep of the shadowfell, they are (indirectly) incited by the BBEG. Talking to them could work, calming them down and even provide valuable intel about the BBEG.

Your now offering options to do before they attack. So, when the goblin's attack you in keep of the shaddowfell, because negotiations broke down or were ignored (or perhaps noone spoke goblin), then what? Do you knock them all out? Then what? do you bring the unconcious goblins back to town to be delt with by the villagers? How will the villagers react, will they jail them, execute them, enslave them, or befriend them? Will the BBEG not notice his first patrol or guard station of goblin's have gone missing and replace them? When you encounter the replacement guards, will you do the whole spare and return to town" again? And the third time? will the BBEG be stupid enough to continue putting a guard station there without some kind of increased protection? Will you try and defeat the goblin's forces through attricion, bringing them all into your village, en mass, hoping they'll behave while your not there, untill you can finally walk about the keep unmolested? I'm serious, I'm honestly currious how you are going to handle this scenario via nonlethal means.

May 12, 2010 -- 3:08AM, Garanth wrote:

Read Joe Abercrombie or George RR Martin to see how an "evil" campaign would go down. Or Mugen from Samurai Champloo.

The Black Company.

May 12, 2010 -- 9:16AM, Kratch wrote:

That's a HUGE "If", and an incredibly dangerous one, depending on how difficult it was to take the dragon down to begin with.

Doing the good thing does not necessarily mean doing the most practical thing. Evil is often the more practical option. Good means doing the ethically "right thing," which also means exhibiting a certain level of respect for life. All life. Sometimes doing the "good thing" means taking a chance that puts you in danger, because it is ethically better to put yourself in danger than it is to summarily execute a creature that might be capable of reformation...

May 12, 2010 -- 9:13AM, Cyber-Dave wrote:

This statement does lead to the potential conclusion that it would be a good act to wipe America off the map.

 
This is wrong.  Why?  Because unlike America, a dragon is........EVIL.  That goes without saying, which is why I didn't say it.

America has an immense capacity to cause destruction (see Afghanistan, two Iraq wars, and so on and so forth).

 
Which applies to every country in the world, not just America.

America's populous is often stereotyped as having a massive ego (see the typical "American tourist" stereotype). While I would not go so far as to say that this stereotype is a typical representation of American's in general, this stereotype is often experientially bolstered by the encounters that many of us non-American's have had with American's on our soil, and by the public speeches given by many American officals.

 
Which you non-Americans bring upon yourselves.  Every American traveler I know has bad experiences with the people of the foreign countries they travel to.  The stereotype that is pinned on us causes people of other countries to treat us poorly.  This makes us angry and because we have the audacity to be upset at this treatment, we only confirms the incorrect stereotype.

America has proven itself to be cunning (see its justification of the Iraq war).

 
This applies to almost every country in the world.

And, moreover, America has proven itself to often be incapable of keeping its own word (see the historical reason why Al-Quaida hates America so much.

 
This DEFINATELY applies to every country in the world.

America originally trained and armed the ur-roots of that organization when they thought it would best serve their interests.

 
Yep.  Just like every other country in the world, America makes bad decisions, too.

So far you've done nothing but prove that America is like every other nation out there.  The ONLY difference is that we're in the top spot, so we get to bear the brunt of everything, including the ridicule and bad feelings.

Indeed, lets talk about clues. Here are a couple. America didn't wipe out Russia because military intelligence suggested that the attempt to do so might very well cause the destruction of America.

 
So what.  Russia is one of very many on that list, most of whom can't do squat to us.

America doesn't wipe out China because the two countries are economically tied together, and because there is a good Chance that a war with China might irrevocably ruin both America's economy and power (China is not a weak enemy).

 
You mean this RECENT development?  We had ample opportunity to do so before we became intertwined with China.

America fought North Korea, like they fought Vietnam, and failed to be able to secure a solid victory.

 
Um, what does that have to do with wiping them out or not?  We have ample nuclear, biological and chemical weapons to reduce North Korea to unhibitable wasteland.

In the process of the Vietnamese war Americans were responsible for horrible atrocities perpetrated against Vietnamese, so it is a terrible example of American ethics on the world stage (it is, in fact, an example of quite the opposite).

 
Thanks for the history lesson, but this also has nothing to do with whether or not we will wipe countries with WMD's off the face of the earth.  So far, we have attacked exactly zero countries for possessing WMDs.  Bush's lies don't count.

And America doesn't destroy Israel because American and Israeli intrests in the middle east often align. Israel is one of the few "westernized" countries in that region of the world.

 
Irrelevant.  We can't be trusted, remember?

As for the others, we live in a day and age where "unauthorized" or "unwarranted" aggression earns the ire of the world's "super-powers."

 
Um, there are no other super powers.  China is close, but not there.  And do you know what?  The economical ties we have to the world would prevent them from doing a whole heck of a lot if we decided to melt Iran or North Korea.  We certainly wouldn't get nuked or anything.  We don't do these thinge because they would be wrong to do.

Attacking Afghanistan, which was certainly a warranted act of aggression, managed to cause a lot of Anti-American sentiment on the world stage.

 
Yep.  People like to hate America.  That's part of what we get for being on top.  Even when we do something right and good, we get crap for it.  No matter who is on top of anything for any reason, they will be envied and disliked by many who are not at the top.

Attacking Iraq, which America argued was a warranted act of aggression, earned quite a bit more ire.

 
Let's get this straight right now.  America didn't argue that.  The Bush White House did.  From the very get go, American's disliked what Bush was doing.  The only reason he had the support he had when he started was due to his lies.  It didn't take long for many the dupes to change their positions.

I don't think the term "world war," with most of the world aligned against America, would be unlikely.

Not a chance in hell.  Tell me which countries would suicide against our nuclear arsenal?  The only thing a world war against America could possibly accomplish is the end of mankind.  The other coutries just aren't that stupid.

And yet, despite all these checks and balances that restrict American actions, America has still been responsible for such relatively recent (destructive) actions such as the Iraq war, the Vietnam war,

 
Which pale in comparrison to Rowanda, Bosnia and other places.

seems like little more than a grudge match between itself and Iraq.

 
Bush, not America.  Get it right.

can claim that there is nothing to stop the dragon from breaking its word, and there are no checks and balances in place against future aggression by the dragon,

 
There is no check against a dragon other than the PCs.

then it can certainly be claimed (and equally abstracted) that America can not keep its word, and has no checks and balances in place to prevent American aggression, as well. Of course, the truth is that both have checks and balances in place to stop aggression, and that in both cases those checks and balances sometimes fail. But if the occasional failure of those checks and balances is enough to warrant a thing's destruction then one CAN claim that America has earned its own destruction...

Once again, you're missing that dragons are...........evil.  America is not.

May 12, 2010 -- 9:28AM, Cyber-Dave wrote:

May 12, 2010 -- 9:16AM, Kratch wrote:

May 10, 2010 -- 2:14PM, Qube wrote:

you know, I'm advocating right  the opposite. if you can knock out a dragon and make it  help people instead of battling them - I don't see why killing it  wouldn't be an act of evil.

That's a HUGE "If", and an incredibly dangerous  one, depending on how difficult it was to take the dragon down to begin  with.

Doing the good thing does not necessarily mean doing the most practical thing. Evil is often the more practical option. Good means doing the ethically "right thing," which also means exhibiting a certain level of respect for life. All life. Sometimes doing the "good thing" means taking a chance that puts you in danger, because it is ethically better to put yourself in danger than it is to summarily execute a creature that might be capable of reformation...

But in this case, we're not discussing what's good, we're discussing what's evil (note the bolded/underlined section of Qube's quote), and as the world of DnD is not limited to a binary good/evil, IE, there is also a neutral/unaligned aspect. The "good thing to do in this case is increadably difficult, dangerous and impracticle, but that's the good thing. The evil thing to do would be to let the dragon continue destroying the countryside and killing the people, despite plea's for help. Killing an evil, merauding dragon, rather then spending the time, effort and money to reform a dragon that could turn on you and kill you at some inconvienient moment and return to it's evil merauding ways, isn't evil. It may not be the exaulted good thing to do, but, unless you live in a binary good/evil, yes/no, black/white world, where the only option is to do that exaulted good deed, or else be evil, I don't think it's fair to say that killing the dragon is evil.

May 12, 2010 -- 9:43AM, Maxperson wrote:

This is wrong.  Why?  Because unlike America, a dragon is........EVIL.  That goes without saying, which is why I didn't say it.

A dragon is not always evil. There are non-evil dragon variants. 4e has highlighted the fact that player characters will often come head to head even with non-evil variants (due to a difference in goals). Additionally, one can only claim a dragon is "EVIL" because of a stat block which says "evil." Not only are there exceptions to the rule, but this "essential quality" listed in the stat block can not be effectively compared to the real world because the real world does not have stat blocks that empirically name the "alignments" of entities. It is very possible to possess a paradigm that envisions America as "EVIL." Indeed, much of the world considers America to be exactly that. You might not agree, but by a similar vein a dragon might not consider itself to be "evil" either, stat block be damned. Stat blocks are not something that characters in the world have access to. PCs can not look at a dragon's stat block and say "this thing is empirically evil." A stat block is a tool to help DMs and PCs flesh out the actions of their characters. Ultimately, all an individual in the world can judge another individual on is their actions. And like in the real world, some characters might have different definitions of what exactly constitutes "good" or "evil," despite the out of character tool used to help define that individual's actions by the person role-playing that individual. A very good example of this explicitly happening in D&D is King Kaius ir'Wynarn III from Eberron. He is an "evil" vampire. He also doesn't think of himself as evil. He thinks of himself as doing what is necessary to take care of his kingdom, and the people that live in it. He has their best interests at heart, and has committed many questionable actions because of it. And like American's he would probably argue that calling him evil is unfair. After all, he has done many "good" things as well. He is one of the most vocal proponents for peace in Eberron...

Which applies to every country in the world, not just America.

It certainly does. And based on your criteria, it could probably be argued that every country is evil and should be destroyed. Which, it seems to me, was Qube's point. Your criteria are not very useful. Someone can fit all of those criteria and not be considered evil. Someone could fit all those criteria and still be worthy of a second chance.

Which you non-Americans bring upon yourselves.  Every American traveler I know has bad experiences with the people of the foreign countries they travel to.  The stereotype that is pinned on us causes people of other countries to treat us poorly.  This makes us angry and because we have the audacity to be upset at this treatment, we only confirms the incorrect stereotype.

And here we have a "typical" American response. You non-American's bring it upon yourselves! We American's have no fault. Nope, you are not egotistical at all...

Not all Americans act poorly when they come visit other countries. I have met plenty of great American's whose company was a raw pleasure. But I have met many American's who fit the American stereotype to a T as well. Fools who walked into a room believing that because they were American they had some claim to the love, affection, and respect of everyone around them. They got quite upset when they were not given that love, affection, or respect, because they had not done anything to earn it. And no, nobody brought their ire or poor behavior on themselves.

I am sure that the situation you describe has happened as well. I have no pretense to a black in white world, a world in which American's always behave poorly and the rest of the world always acts without fault. But don't kid yourself by abstracting and then conflating all American interaction abroad into that situation either. It is not true that American's always act without fault, and the rest of the world always brings poor American behavior onto themselves. America has earned itself the "stereotype" of being egotistical, and there is quite a lot of good reasons to call America just that... 

This applies to almost every country in the world.

Indeed, it does. And, as I noted, based on your criteria it could probably be possible to argue that every  country is evil and should be destroyed. Which, it seems to me, was  Qube's point. Your criteria are not very useful. Someone can fit all of  those criteria and not be considered evil. Someone could fit all those  criteria and still be worthy of a second chance.

This DEFINATELY applies to every country in the world.

I fully agree. Please see what I wrote above. This is why I don't consider your set of criteria useful. This is why Qube stated that based on your criteria one could argue that America should be destroyed. This is why Qube stated that he doesn't like your criteria, and finds them problematic.

Yep.  Just like every other country in the world, America makes bad decisions, too.

So do dragons. So, why not give dragons a second chance, if it is possible to do so? And, if destroying countries because they make mistakes is an evil act (and I do believe that it is), then how is it not an evil act to destroy a dragon because it has made a mistake? You have a double standard.

So far you've done nothing but prove that America is like every other nation out there.  The ONLY difference is that we're in the top spot, so we get to bear the brunt of everything, including the ridicule and bad feelings.

Not at all. I believed that America was like every other nation from the start. What I did was maneuver this conversation to prove a point. Your criteria fit America. Your criteria also fit every other country out there. If your criteria don't make America, and every country out there, worthy of summary destruction, they don't make a dragon worthy of summary destruction either.

So what.  Russia is one of very many on that list, most of whom can't do squat to us.

And all of whom America has a reason not to attack, a reason no less potent then a group of PCs willing to hunt down and kill you if you fail to agree to their terms.

You mean this RECENT development?  We had ample opportunity to do so before we became intertwined with China.

That is quite arguable.

Um, what does that have to do with wiping them out or not?  We have ample nuclear, biological and chemical weapons to reduce North Korea to unhibitable wasteland.

America also has quite a few world powers who would unite against America, and fight a war that America could not "win" (please note that "winning" does not entail damaging the planet so badly that American's would not be able to survive the war either) if America went about doing so.

Thanks for the history lesson, but this also has nothing to do with whether or not we will wipe countries with WMD's off the face of the earth.  So far, we have attacked exactly zero countries for possessing WMDs.  Bush's lies don't count.

Ah. I see. So when you destroy a government because of the claim that it has WMD's it doesn't count? Sorry, we will have to agree to disagree on that. And it has everything to do with your overall argument, and Qube's overall argument. America committed horrible atrocities during the Vietnam war. Many of its soldiers raped and murdered civilians. This has been documented. America even made the mistake of doing this again. America's soldiers misbehaved, again, during the Iraq war. Stories about prisoners of war being tortured are not uncommon. Indeed, many forms of torture were official policy by the Bush administration. So, calling America a destructive force, as Qube has, is fully fair. So what if America didn't "destroy" entire countries by "wiping them off the map"? It has still committed many destructive actions. It still destroyed many villages. It still caused the unwarranted deaths of many individuals. It has still destroyed governments, arguably without just cause. Saying that America is not destructive because it has not used WMDs to wipe countries off the face of the earth is like saying that the dragon is not destructive because it usually only attacks single villages or cities at a time. And before you start trying to claim that the difference is that the dragon is limited by capability, many dragon's have comparable power to Gods in the D&D universe. So, yes, they fully have the capability to "salt the world," or at least countries, if they so choose.

Irrelevant.  We can't be trusted, remember?

No, it is not irrelevant. It is the example of yet another check and balance on American aggression. You tried to abstract away every check and balance that exists on a dragon's aggression. I pointed out that one could abstract away checks and balances on American aggression in the same manner. I also pointed out that I don't think any of these checks and balances should be abstracted away like that, because doing so is not a useful analysis. You don't get to wave away this check and balance on American aggression, just like you don't get to wave away the potential checks and balances that can exist on a dragon's aggression. Likewise, the fact that those checks and balances might fail (and, historically speaking, have in the case of America) doesn't mean that your country, or the dragon, deserve summary execution (from an ethical perspective. It is quite possible to possess a pragmatic perspective that might lead one to the conclusion that either, or both, should be destroyed).

Um, there are no other super powers.  China is close, but not there.  And do you know what?  The economical ties we have to the world would prevent them from doing a whole heck of a lot if we decided to melt Iran or North Korea.  We certainly wouldn't get nuked or anything.  We don't do these thinge because they would be wrong to do.

That really depends on how you define "super power." If you like the term "world power" better we can use that instead. And you know what, if America went in and melted Iran or North Korea with WMDs, you can bet your bottom that most of the world would unite its military strength against America. And you know what, the united strength of most of the rest of the world is greater than the military strength of America.

Let's get this straight right now.  America didn't argue that.  The Bush White House did.  From the very get go, American's disliked what Bush was doing.  The only reason he had the support he had when he started was due to his lies.  It didn't take long for many the dupes to change their positions.

The American people elected Bush as their representative. That means that Bush's actions, while in power, are a representation of America. I am sorry if you elected poorly. I am sorry if you didn't vote for Bush yourself. I am sorry if you did vote for Bush, and then felt duped for doing so. It doesn't change a thing. So long as Bush was the American president, his actions were the actions of the American government, and the American government is America.

Not a chance in hell.  Tell me which countries would suicide against our nuclear arsenal?  The only thing a world war against America could possibly accomplish is the end of mankind.  The other coutries just aren't that stupid.

We will have to agree to disagree. If America started to use its arsenal, the rest of the world would unite and use their arsenal against America. Of course, that would mean the end of the world. However, if America was stupid enough to use its arsenal it wouldn't matter. It would leave the rest of the world little recourse but to react, because the rest of the world would come to believe that America could not be trusted to do the "smart" thing (and avoid using such destructive weapons).

Which pale in comparrison to Rowanda, Bosnia and other places.

Not all evil is equal to all other forms of evil. It doesn't make many of the actions that have been committed by the American government, or its armed forces, any less evil. It just means that there are even greater evils out there...

Bush, not America.  Get it right.

Bush while he was an American president, and thus represented America. Get it right.

There is no check against a dragon other than the PCs.

There are the PCs. There is the united force of any heroic NPCs or militaries that might exist in the world, and might be willing to support/aid the PCs. There is the fact that a dragon can not use land it completely destroys, and like governments dragons seem to usually want to use/live on the land and not salt it/destroy it (ala some of the aberrations in the world). There are any number of potential plot factors, specific to a campaign, which might give the PCs the ability to employ a diplomatic solution. Of course, if the plot of the campaign gives no possible diplomatic solution, fair enough. But as Qube has noted, in that case there is nothing to discuss. That is not always the case however. Players often can try a diplomatic solution before jumping the headsman's axe straight into summary execution. Player's often don't try. They don't try because they don't consider it pragmatic. But pragmatic =/= ethical.

Once again, you're missing that dragons are...........evil.  America is not.

Once again, you're missing that governments, based on your criteria, can also be considered evil. Once again, you're missing that dragons are not always necessarily evil. Once again, you are missing that even monsters with "evil" alignments can be productive members to society given the right forces of motivation.

May 12, 2010 -- 10:56AM, Kratch wrote:

But in this case, we're not discussing what's good, we're discussing what's evil (note the bolded/underlined section of Qube's quote), and as the world of DnD is not limited to a binary good/evil, IE, there is also a neutral/unaligned aspect. The "good thing to do in this case is increadably difficult, dangerous and impracticle, but that's the good thing. The evil thing to do would be to let the dragon continue destroying the countryside and killing the people, despite plea's for help. Killing an evil, merauding dragon, rather then spending the time, effort and money to reform a dragon that could turn on you and kill you at some inconvienient moment and return to it's evil merauding ways, isn't evil. It may not be the exaulted good thing to do, but, unless you live in a binary good/evil, yes/no, black/white world, where the only option is to do that exaulted good deed, or else be evil, I don't think it's fair to say that killing the dragon is evil.

Of course it is. It is absolutely fair to say that killing the dragon, without trying to first reform it (given the opportunity to do so), is an evil act. Evil acts are often pragmatic. Pragmatic acts can serve the "greater good." That doesn't make some of those pragmatic acts any less evil. That doesn't make killing the dragon, without giving it the chance to reform (if you have the opportunity to give it that chance) any less evil. As for a character's alignment, depending on how often they choose the ethically good act vs. the pragmatic act, it is quite possible to play an evil character with good goals. So, returning to the original point of this post, there is nothing impractical about playing an evil character. In fact, based on the sort of adventures D&D characters have, it is often more practical to play an evil character. It is just impractical to play a douchebag jerk, or a "chaotic evil" character. At least so long as you are playing in a campaign where the overall goals of the story arc are to do good...

to interject.  Killing the dragon (assuming an evil dragon) is NOT evil.  Despite the real world analogies being made - this is D&D - evil and good are cosmic forces to which one is aligned (or not) and that are at war.  Killing those aligned with evil is the DUTY of those that align themselves good.  The argument that they can be reformed doesn't wash.  In such a case, they weren't truly aligned.

May 12, 2010 -- 11:38AM, PBN wrote:

to interject.  Killing the dragon (assuming an evil dragon) is NOT evil.  Despite the real world analogies being made - this is D&D - evil and good are cosmic forces to which one is aligned (or not) and that are at war.  Killing those aligned with evil is the DUTY of those that align themselves good.  The argument that they can be reformed doesn't wash.  In such a case, they weren't truly aligned.

Which is objectively false based on the alignments that the designers have chosen to give to certain NPCs. King  Kaius ir'Wynarn III from Eberron is an "evil" vampire. He also  doesn't think of himself as evil. He is not cosmically aligned to evil. He thinks of himself as doing what is  necessary to take care of his kingdom, and the people that live in it.  He has their best interests at heart, and has committed many  questionable actions because of it. One of those actions involved getting himself turned into a vampire, and aligning himself with an evil power, in order to gain the power necessary to save his kingdom from destruction. He later cut ties with this evil power because he decided that they did not have the best interests of his nation at heart.

Certainly one might say that his actions are largely those of a tyrant consumed by hatred. He killed his wife in a fit of vampiric rage. He dominates those who question his will. He demands solidarity from his people. Many of his actions can be construed as evil. But like American's he would  probably argue that calling his actions evil is unfair. After all, he has done  many "good" things as well. He is one of the most vocal proponents for  peace in Eberron, and was a key player in the signing of the treaty that stopped the war in Eberron. The setting describes Kaius as a ruler who is, ultimately, a force of  stability for his people. Despite a couple of instances in which he gave  in to his more basic bloodlust (and it should be noted that the most notable instance, the killing of his wife, was an  instance brought on by a plot perpetrated by the evil power he aligned  himself with in which he was magically caused to go into a bloodlust he could not control), he is largely a tough but fair ruler. Indeed, he keeps a  harem of willing people to act as his food bank. He keeps himself  regularly fed so that he never kills who he feeds on, and will never  succumb to his bloodlust and kill unintentionally again. He only  dominates those who he has to in order to create stability for the  nation. He does what he must to keep his nation from crumbling, which  would cause the death and starvation of untold numbers. Still, his stat block says evil.

Is it the "DUTY" of good players to kill him? That is a very questionable assertion. I am sure some members of the Church of the Silver Flame would probably say yes. I am sure many of the people who depend on him for food and sustenance would probably say no.

D&D is not as black and white and some people would like to claim.

May 12, 2010 -- 11:00AM, Cyber-Dave wrote:

May 12, 2010 -- 9:43AM, Maxperson wrote:

This is wrong.  Why?  Because unlike America, a dragon is........EVIL.  That goes without saying, which is why I didn't say it.

A dragon is not always evil. There are non-evil dragon variants.

Then the dragon isn't a problem to be fought.

4e has highlighted the fact that player characters will often come head to head even with non-evil variants (due to a difference in goals).

 
That =/= fight.

Additionally, one can only claim a dragon is "EVIL" because of a stat block which says "evil."

 
Yes.  One can claim the rules are the rules.  If you want to house rule, take it to the house rule forum.

 the real world does not have stat blocks that empirically name the "alignments" of entities. It is very possible to possess a paradigm that envisions America as "EVIL."

 
Not according to the D&D alignments, which is what we are using.  If you want to go outside of D&D, take it to the appropriate forum.

but by a similar vein a dragon might not consider itself to be "evil" either, stat block be damned.

This is irrelevant.  The RULES say it's evil.

 PCs can not look at a dragon's stat block and say "this thing is empirically evil."

 
No.  The actions of the EVIL dragon enable the PCs to look at a dragon and say it's evil.

Ultimately, all an individual in the world can judge another individual on is their actions. And like in the real world, some characters might have different definitions of what exactly constitutes "good" or "evil," despite the out of character tool used to help define that individual's actions by the person role-playing that individual.

 
In D&D, creatures are good and evil because that's what the rules say.  If a PC wants to believe that a LG paladin is evil based on some crazy moral compass, that's fine.  His belief won't actually change an alignment.  This is one of the reasons that alignment should be done away with.

A very good example of this explicitly happening in D&D is King Kaius ir'Wynarn III from Eberron. He is an "evil" vampire. He also doesn't think of himself as evil. He thinks of himself as doing what is necessary to take care of his kingdom, and the people that live in it.

 
So what.  Evil is evil, even if it doesn't think it is.

Which applies to every country in the world, not just America.

It certainly does. And based on your criteria, it could probably be argued that every country is evil and should be destroyed.

 
Um, my criteria is D&D assigned alignments.  As soon as you direct me to which page in any 4ed book has America's or any other country's alignment, you be sure to let me know.

And here we have a "typical" American response. You non-American's bring it upon yourselves! We American's have no fault. Nope, you are not egotistical at all...

Don't treat us like crap and we won't get upset at it.  I'm not claiming that 100% of American's are nice, but you assign this "arrogant" label to all of us and treat our travelers like crap.  You DO bring it on yourselves, because you're too shortsighted to realize that the President isn't America. 

During Bush's presidency, the whole world looked down at us.  Now that Obama is president, that's changing.  I have news for you.  No one in America has changed.  The people are who they were through both presidencies.

Not all Americans act poorly when they come visit other countries. I have met plenty of great American's whose company was a raw pleasure. But I have met many American's who fit the American stereotype to a T as well. Fools who walked into a room believing that because they were American they had some claim to the love, affection, and respect of everyone around them. They got quite upset when they were not given that love, affection, or respect, because they had not done anything to earn it. And no, nobody brought their ire or poor behavior on themselves.

 
Right. Yet many people from your country and others don't keep an open mind.  It doesn't take many of you to set someone off.

 America has earned itself the "stereotype" of being egotistical, and there is quite a lot of good reasons to call America just that... 

No, we haven't.  That's a label you assign to us over politics.

So do dragons. So, why not give dragons a second chance, if it is possible to do so?

 
Because that isn't true in D&D.  The dragons we are discussing aren't making bad decisions..........THEY ARE EVIL.  That's the rules. 

America also has quite a few world powers who would unite against America, and fight a war that America could not "win" (please note that "winning" does not entail damaging the planet so badly that American's would not be able to survive the war either) if America went about doing so.

You don't get it, do you?  Since America WILL do that rather than lose, those "world powers" will not unite against an America that gets rid of say Iran or North Korea.  They would only do so if we did such things on a regular or semi-regular basis.

Ah. I see. So when you destroy a government because of the claim that it has WMD's it doesn't count?

 
That isn't why we went there.  I'm sorry, but lies just do not count.  Only actual reasons do.  The WMD thing was made up as an excuse to go in.

Many of its soldiers raped and murdered civilians.

 
Not under orders from the Country. 

This has been documented. America even made the mistake of doing this again. America's soldiers misbehaved, again, during the Iraq war.

 
Um, those were individual mistakes, not mistakes of "America".  The only "American" mistake(other than going there in the first place) was the torture issue, and even that wasn't an "American" mistake.  It was a "Bush" mistake.  America had no say in the matter.

 And before you start trying to claim that the difference is that the dragon is limited by capability, many dragon's have comparable power to Gods in the D&D universe. So, yes, they fully have the capability to "salt the world," or at least countries, if they so choose.

Which is why, due to their D&D ALIGNMENT in combination WITH that capablility, they have to be destroyed and it is a good act to do so.

That really depends on how you define "super power." If you like the term "world power" better we can use that instead. And you know what, if America went in and melted Iran or North Korea with WMDs, you can bet your bottom that most of the world would unite its military strength against America.

 
Only if they were suicidal.

And you know what, the united strength of most of the rest of the world is greater than the military strength of America.

 
Even combined, they couldn't assault U.S.A proper and win.  It's just not feasible to go across oceans and expect to survive to assault America.  We could not assault the world, but they cannot attack us and win.  The ONLY way to defeat America is through WMDs and that would only assure the destruction of everyone.  You're a fool if you believe they would come at us with armies if we melted Iran or North Korea.  At worst, there would be economic attacks that would hurt for only as long as it took to get our factories up and running again.

The American people elected Bush as their representative. That means that Bush's actions, while in power, are a representation of America.

That's arguable.  A minority followed by an extremely thin majority doesn't constitute "America", nor do actions taken by an elected president that people would not have wanted and didn't know about in advance.

So long as Bush was the American president, his actions were the actions of the American government, and the American government is America.

You were doing okay until the end.  The PEOPLE are America, not the President.

We will have to agree to disagree. If America started to use its arsenal, the rest of the world would unite and use their arsenal against America. Of course, that would mean the end of the world. However, if America was stupid enough to use its arsenal it wouldn't matter. It would leave the rest of the world little recourse but to react, because the rest of the world would come to believe that America could not be trusted to do the "smart" thing (and avoid using such destructive weapons).

If we used it against Iran or North Korea and no one else, there would be no all out war.  Everyone knows that both countries are lead by EXTREMELY unstable governments and insane leaders.  They would condemn us.  They would sanction us.  But they wouldn't be stupid enough to suicide over an unstable and crazy country with WMDs.

May 12, 2010 -- 11:56AM, Cyber-Dave wrote:

D&D is not as black and white and some people would like to claim.

Funny, given how your view of killing an evil, marauding dragon who is laying waste of nearby villages, killing innocent people, is evil because it isn't the good action of trying to reform it (regardless of how impractical (even impossible) the task may actually be), and isn't actually a neutral act.

According to your arguement, if I am playing a good character, perhaps a paladin of Bahamut (Justice, honour and protection), and I come across a village being terrorized by an evil dragon, but I have an existing task that requires my attention (and as such, I don't have the time to reform an evil dragon), and/or the dragon is powerful enough to be a very difficult battle that I may not survive (and certainly wouldn't if I didn't have the advantage of preparation and surprise), the good action is to actually leave the village to solve the issue themselves (the valid alternative to killing the dragon) rather then going and killing the dragon.

May 12, 2010 -- 9:43AM, Maxperson wrote:

Let's get this straight right now.  America didn't argue that.  The Bush White House did.  From the very get go, American's disliked what Bush was doing.  The only reason he had the support he had when he started was due to his lies.  It didn't take long for many the dupes to change their positions.

Speak for yourself.  Bush did not lie.  He believed intelligence that was exaggerated; intelligence that was shared, contributed to and believed by many other countries as well, including several of Iraq's neighbors.  In fact, altho one would have a hard time in fishing this out of what the media tells people, the only WMD intelligence which hasn't been confirmed was the existance of stockpiles of assembled, ready to fire weapons.  We found proof that Saddam had WMD programs, proof of further programs to hide the WMD programs.  We found components for chemical weapons and their delivery systems.  In at least two instances we found assembled sarin delivery artillery shells.  We found left over waste from bio weapons disposal (ash from burnt anthrax that was still warm when our troops entered the incinerator).  And there is substantial evidence that whatever other WMD materials Saddam had were either disposed of or sent out of the country during the many weeks that Bush wasted building a coalition before the invasion began.

No, WMDs were not the only reason for going into Iraq,  maybe not even the main reason; it was just the one that got all the attention.  There was also the fact that Saddam supported terrorism by knowingly allowing Hezbollah and other terrorist groups to operate training camps within his borders, making him a legitimate target in the fight against terrorism.  This also played well into the long-term strategy of planting a democratically elected govt in the middle east to eventually serve as a countering influence to all the ignorance and oppression that breeds terrorists in the first place.
And then there the fact that Saddam was an insane mass-murdering dictator sitting on a big chunk of Europe's oil supply.  He needed to be removed as a threat to world stability.

As to the other poster's claim that we removed Saddam and just left the Iraqi people hanging... yeah right.  That's why we've spent so much effort, money and American lives rebuilding their infrastructure, hospitals and schools.  That's why we fought the Saddam loyalist/Al Quaida/Iran sponsored insurrection while training their security forces... and why our troops are still there.

I will agree with you tho, that the ONLY thing that actually stops the US from conquering and dominating the entire world is that we're the good guys.  And for that we are continually met with the world's jealosy and scorn, except when they come to us with their hand out demanding our help.
 

May 12, 2010 -- 12:18PM, Lord_Darwath wrote:

Speak for yourself.  Bush did not lie.  He believed intelligence that was exaggerated; intelligence that was shared, contributed to and believed by many other countries as well, including several of Iraq's neighbors.

When Powell went before the U.N. and presented our evidence, I watched it with an open mind.  When I saw just how flimsy and essentially worthless our "proof" was, I was embarassed that he had to go before the world with what he had.  It later came out that the evidence was in fact as flimsy as presented.  I mean going on only the word of a man who hated Iraq's leader as one piece of evidence?  That's barely enough proof for a traffic ticket.  The world went along with England and the U.S. because we SAID the evidence was good enough.  Congress went along with it for the same reason.

We found proof that Saddam had WMD programs, proof of further programs to hide the WMD programs. 

 
We found evidence that Saddam was being lied to by his scientists who were telling him that they were making progress.  I remember being highly amused at that.

We found components for chemical weapons and their delivery systems.

We found old systems dating back to the first gulf war and further to the Iran/Iraq war.

In at least two instances we found assembled sarin delivery artillery shells. 

 
Which were again from before the original gulf war.

We found left over waste from bio weapons disposal (ash from burnt anthrax that was still warm when our troops entered the incinerator).

I couldn't find anything on this, not even from non-credible news groups.

And there is substantial evidence that whatever other WMD materials Saddam had were either disposed of or sent out of the country during the many weeks that Bush wasted building a coalition before the invasion began.

There is a lot of speculation on this, but no actual proof that it happened.

There was also the fact that Saddam supported terrorism by knowingly allowing Hezbollah and other terrorist groups to operate training camps within his borders, making him a legitimate target in the fight against terrorism.

There are dozens of countries that support terrorism, yet we don't go into them and take over.  Not only that, but Hezbollah hadn't attacked us in 20 YEARS.  You'd think Bush would have at least gone after an orginization that was a threat to us if terrorism was his reason for attacking a country.

This also played well into the long-term strategy of planting a democratically elected govt in the middle east to eventually serve as a countering influence to all the ignorance and oppression that breeds terrorists in the first place.
And then there the fact that Saddam was an insane mass-murdering dictator sitting on a big chunk of Europe's oil supply.  He needed to be removed as a threat to world stability.

We had no right to do this.  It isn't our job to decide who gets to run what country and how they run it.  It's our job to spank them if they try it on us.  We should have bombed Iraq into the stone age each time they shot at us in the no fly zone, but we should never have invaded and occupied.

I will agree with you tho, that the ONLY thing that actually stops the US from conquering and dominating the entire world is that we're the good guys.  And for that we are continually met with the world's jealosy and scorn, except when they come to us with their hand out demanding our help.
 

On this it works both ways.  If we tried to take over the world, we'd be initiating the mutual nuclear destruction. 

May 12, 2010 -- 12:03PM, Maxperson wrote:

Then the dragon isn't a problem to be fought.

The 4e books say otherwise. They give full combat statistics for non-evil dragons (at least, the Draconomicon books do), and ideas on how to bring about a combat scenario via good PCs and non-evil (even good) dragons.

That =/= fight.

Yes, it does. The definition of a fight, according to the OED, is:

A combat, battle.    a. A hostile encounter or engagement  between opposing forces;

When a non-evil dragon and a group of PCs roll initiative, attacks, and damage against each other, with the express intent of taking each other out via combat, it is a fight. It is a hostile encounter between two opposing forces. It is a combat, a battle. It is a combat encounter. There are 4e books that discus exactly how to include such encounters between good PCs and non-evil dragons.

Yes.  One can claim the rules are the rules.  If you want to house rule, take it to the house rule forum.

This is a strawman argument. It is not a house rule to note that some creatures, which by the rules are listed as evil, do not consider themselves to be "EVIL" in character. It is not a house rule to point out that characters do not have access to their own stat blocks, and often might not even know that they, themselves, are evil. I pointed out an official character, from an official product, who can be described exactly as such.

Not according to the D&D alignments, which is what we are using.  If you want to go outside of D&D, take it to the appropriate forum.

According to the D&D alignments, it is very easy to come from a paradigm that considers America to be evil. It is very easy to consider America to be a tyrannical country, in the sense that the country acts in a tyrannical/empirical manner towards the rest of the world, that is heavily invested in hate. That matches what is described in the 4e PHB. You might not agree, but as I pointed out, an evil creature in D&D might not agree that it is, itself, evil. It might hold to an ethical principle that does not actually match its actions. It might justify its own actions in the name of the "greater good." It might talk about pragmatism and practicality, and commit evil acts as a result. Not considering yourself evil does not ensure that you are not evil (by somebodies standards, somebody's interpretation of the D&D alignments).

This is irrelevant.  The RULES say it's evil.

It is not irrelevant. The "RULES" can say it is evil. That doesn't mean that it is not an evil act to summarily kill the creature without giving it a chance to act in a manner that is beneficial to society at large. There are evil creatures in D&D that do just that. Killing those creatures is not a good act. It is an evil act.

No.  The actions of the EVIL dragon enable the PCs to look at a dragon and say it's evil.

But that is not true. The actions of an evil NPC might exist in a gray space, the sort of gray space that is created when one talks about committing evil acts in the name of a greater good. I have already given an example of an evil NPC who's actions exist in exactly just a gray space: King Kaius.

In D&D, creatures are good and evil because that's what the rules say.  If a PC wants to believe that a LG paladin is evil based on some crazy moral compass, that's fine.  His belief won't actually change an alignment.  This is one of the reasons that alignment should be done away with.

Killing a creature just because the rules say it is evil is not a good act. One must look at a larger picture. Someone who goes around committing murder against every evil NPC they run across would be an evil character themselves. They would simply be an evil character with a "crazy moral compass." But I agree with you, the alignment system should be done away with completely. I will go into that more in my response to Kratch.

Um, my criteria is D&D assigned alignments.  As soon as you direct me to which page in any 4ed book has America's or any other country's alignment, you be sure to let me know.

They don't have countries alignments listed because a) countries are not characters and b) the game does not stat out real world people or institutions. Both facts are irrelevant. If you personify a country, and then stat that country out, it is possible to interpret America to be evil (based on the 4e alignments). Moreover, you gave three very specific qualities (which are not from the 4e alignment system, but rather were chosen by you) and stated that based on those three qualities a dragon deserves death, and killing that creature is a good act. Qube pointed out that America fits into all three of those qualities. You can't abstract that away with hand waves no matter how hard you try.

Don't treat us like crap and we won't get upset at it.  I'm not claiming that 100% of American's are nice, but you assign this "arrogant" label to all of us and treat our travelers like crap.  You DO bring it on yourselves, because you're too shortsighted to realize that the President isn't America.

You elect your president. His actions thus represent you. I am aware that this is often a poor representation. However, it is a representation none the less. And the rest of your statement is fallacious. It is not true that we treat all your travelers like crap. Claiming as much is as fallacious as claiming that all Americans are, bar none, arrogant. It is true, however, to say that the actions of some of those that represent your country often make your country seem arrogant, and that the actions of many of your tourists reify this impression (for the record it is also true to say that the actions of many your tourists do not, in any shape or form, conform to this impression). Thus it is fair to walk away with the impression that America, as a country personified, can often be an arrogant entity. Of course this is an abstraction. And like all abstractions, it obfuscates some details. In this case it obfuscates the fact that the term "arrogant" does not apply to many Americans. But any personification of a country will always be an abstraction. It can not be avoided. And for the purposes of Qube's statement, it is still fair to say that the personified entity of America can be interpreted, based on your three criteria, to deserve death. For the purposes of Qube's statement, it is still fair to say that based on your three criteria, one can interpret the destruction of America as a good act.

During Bush's presidency, the whole world looked down at us.  Now that Obama is president, that's changing.  I have news for you.  No one in America has changed.  The people are who they were through both presidencies.

Again, when you elect a representative you must accept that he represents (the proverbial, and multiple) you. He represents America. Of course, I am fully aware that the conflation between an individual American and America is a fraudulent conflation. I am not saying that the president is all the people he represents. But he does represent them. For his term of office, he is the voice and hand of the country. It is he who chooses how America, as an institutional body, acts. The only way to judge the country, as a whole (and not its individual constituents), is by its actions. You can not simply say "those actions, on the part of our government, were not the actions of our country but only of our president." For better or worse that president represents the government, and chooses the actions of the government. However, it is not Bush alone that perpetrated those actions, but a host of individuals who went along with Bush. Bush is not the troops he sent over seas. Bush is not the public he convinced to accept his actions. Bush is not the institution which oked all of his decisions. America went to war with Iraq, not president Bush. If America chose not to go to war then a war would not have happened, no matter what one man wanted, even if it took a revolution. 

Right. Yet many people from your country and others don't keep an open mind.  It doesn't take many of you to set someone off.

And many people from your country do not keep an open mind, and walk into every situation expecting love, worship, and respect that they do not deserve. It can be argued that those people have created the attitude that sometimes causes some people to start treating all Americans poorly. Personally, I think its a bit of a situation of the chicken and the egg. Pointing fingers is pointless. There are both people who treat all Americans poorly, and Americans who are so annoying and infuriating that they manage to give a terrible impression of your culture (and often cause people from other countries to start treating all Americans worse). It is impossible to claim that the problem stems with either of these two groups. But, so long as you keep trying to claim that it is all the doing of others you continue to make yourself look egotistical. You continue to reify the impression that America is egotistical.

No, we haven't.  That's a label you assign to us over politics.

America is not an American. America is a political entity. It is a government. The actions of that government often seem egotistical to the rest of the world.

Because that isn't true in D&D.  The dragons we are discussing aren't making bad decisions..........THEY ARE EVIL.  That's the rules.

No, it is not. According to the rules of D&D, a "evil" creature is not necessarily capital E, irredeemable, evil. See King Kaius.

You don't get it, do you?  Since America WILL do that rather than lose, those "world powers" will not unite against an America that gets rid of say Iran or North Korea.  They would only do so if we did such things on a regular or semi-regular basis.

Of course the actions of the rest of the world depend on the situation. But given the right situation, the rest of the world will align against America.

That isn't why we went there.  I'm sorry, but lies just do not count.  Only actual reasons do.  The WMD thing was made up as an excuse to go in.

But it was the publicly mediated reason, and therefore it is fair game. Indeed, to this day members of that administration continue to claim that that was the original reason to invade.

Not under orders from the Country.

The invasion was under orders from the country. The rapes and murders happened to frequently to simply be waved away. The country did not do nearly enough in order to remove its own culpability from its soldier['s actions.

Um, those were individual mistakes, not mistakes of "America".  The only "American" mistake(other than going there in the first place) was the torture issue, and even that wasn't an "American" mistake.  It was a "Bush" mistake.  America had no say in the matter.

Again, a "Bush" mistake is an "American" mistake. Bush did not commit those actions personally. Soldiers, in the name of America, did what their president told them to do. The institution acted as a congruent entity. Thus, to take all of the actions of the military body and to place those actions on the shoulders of Bush is simply ridiculous. The institution bears culpability.

Which is why, due to their D&D ALIGNMENT in combination WITH that capablility, they have to be destroyed and it is a good act to do so.

You lack a tenable position with which to support that claim. Killing an evil dragon that acts like King Kaius is not necessarily a good act. It might very well be an evil act.

Only if they were suicidal.

If America went off and melted down Iran and North Korea with nukes it would not be suicidal to destroy America. It would be good sense. At that point in time America would have proven itself to dangerous a political body to exist.

Even combined, they couldn't assault U.S.A proper and win.  It's just not feasible to go across oceans and expect to survive to assault America.  We could not assault the world, but they cannot attack us and win.  The ONLY way to defeat America is through WMDs and that would only assure the destruction of everyone.  You're a fool if you believe they would come at us with armies if we melted Iran or North Korea.  At worst, there would be economic attacks that would hurt for only as long as it took to get our factories up and running again.

1) We will have to agree to disagree. I think you overvalue your own forces.
2) I do not doubt for a second that if America did something so stupid as to melt down two countries with WMDs that the rest of the world would not start using WMDs against America.

That's arguable.  A minority followed by an extremely thin majority doesn't constitute "America", nor do actions taken by an elected president that people would not have wanted and didn't know about in advance.

There is nothing arguable about it. The president acts to represent the country. His actions become the actions of the country. Point in case, Bush said Iraq should be invaded, and America, as a country, invaded Iraq. It wasn't just Bush running around with an M16. It was the entire American military institution.

You were doing okay until the end.  The PEOPLE are America, not the President.

The people don't get to choose what America does. All they get to do is vote for the person who will. As I believe that the actions of a thing are what defines a thing, I believe it is the president that is the country at any given moment in time. At best, the people are just an influence.

If we used it against Iran or North Korea and no one else, there would be no all out war.  Everyone knows that both countries are lead by EXTREMELY unstable governments and insane leaders.  They would condemn us.  They would sanction us.  But they wouldn't be stupid enough to suicide over an unstable and crazy country with WMDs.

Yea, I really don't agree. If America went off and melted down those two countries with nukes the economic sanctions would cripple America's economy, and I do not doubt for a second that some very serious military actions would begin against America. It is one thing to wage a war against a country. It is another thing to melt a country down with nukes. The world stage would probably stand for the first. I doubt they would ever be willing to stand for the second.

May 12, 2010 -- 2:09PM, Cyber-Dave wrote:

Yea, I really don't agree. If America went off and melted down those two countries with nukes the economic sanctions would cripple America's economy, and I do not doubt for a second that some very serious military actions would begin against America. It is one thing to wage a war against a country. It is another thing to melt a country down with nukes. The world stage would probably stand for the first. I doubt they would ever be willing to stand for the second.

Economic sanctions?  Against the US?  Really?  Do you really think this could happen?  Texas alone has an economy larger than half of Europe, not to mention California.

America would definitely find itself involved in WW3, but trying to out-sanction the US is a loosing strategy if there ever was one.

May 12, 2010 -- 12:16PM, Kratch wrote:

May 12, 2010 -- 11:56AM, Cyber-Dave wrote:

D&D is not as black and white and some people would like to claim.

Funny, given how your view of killing an evil, marauding dragon who is laying waste of nearby villages, killing innocent people, is evil because it isn't the good action of trying to reform it (regardless of how impractical (even impossible) the task may actually be), and isn't actually a neutral act.

It is not so funny. It is an artifact of the way D&D uses a hard coded black and white alignment system to label a world that is described as anything but black and white. First they create hard coded absolutes like "good" and "evil," and define good and evil actions in black and white terms, and then they create very gray characters (such as King Kaius) who gets labeled on only one facet of his moral compas (his actions as viewed by a moral absolute) which totally obfuscates such things as the intent of his actions, or the pragmatic value of them. When using that system, pragmatically killing in the name of a greater good, when you have some alternative you can attempt first, is always an evil act.

However, I happen to dislike the system for this very reason. I think something like d20 Modern's allegiance system is far superior. A character can choose up to three allegiances. A person works to benefit their allegiances in order of first to last. A person can choose law, chaos, good, or evil, as any of their allegiances. A person who chooses "evil" as their primary allegiance truly would be a capital E-Evil creature, worthy only of death, because the first and most important driving factor behind such a creature would be the willingness to hurt, oppress, kill, and debase life. However, a person doesn't have to choose something like evil as an allegiance at all. In a system like that, King Kaius would not be a evil character, he would be a character with Karrnath, law, and then maybe evil as his allegiances. Evil would not be his first allegiance because he is not capital E evil. Rather, first and foremost he cares about the good of his nation. After that he cares about authority, tradition, truth, and honesty. Maybe he would also be evil because that character is very willing to hurt, oppress, kill, debase or destroy life, even innocent life, in the name of his first two allegiances. Alternatively, a person could choose nation, friend, self, as his allegiances. I think a system like that works much better then trying to pigeonhole morally gray-scale characters into morally absolute alignments.

According to your arguement, if I am playing a good character, perhaps a  paladin of Bahamut (Justice, honour and protection), and I come across a  village being terrorized by an evil dragon, but I have an existing task  that requires my attention (and as such, I don't have the time to  reform an evil dragon), and/or the dragon is powerful enough to be a  very difficult battle that I may not survive (and certainly wouldn't if I  didn't have the advantage of preparation and surprise), the good action  is to actually leave the village to solve the issue themselves (the  valid alternative to killing the dragon) rather then going and killing  the dragon.

And this is bologna. It is not gross hyperbole, it is flat out not what I said.

May 12, 2010 -- 2:09PM, Cyber-Dave wrote:

The 4e books say otherwise. They give full combat statistics for non-evil dragons (at least, the Draconomicon books do), and ideas on how to bring about a combat scenario via good PCs and non-evil (even good) dragons.

So what.  We're talking about evil dragons.  That's the whole point of this conversation

Yes, it does. The definition of a fight, according to the OED, is:

Except you didn't say combat or battle.  You said come head to head, which can be all manner of different types of confrontations.  It simple =/= fight. 

According to the D&D alignments, it is very easy to come from a paradigm that considers America to be evil. It is very easy to consider America to be a tyrannical country, in the sense that the country acts in a tyrannical/empirical manner towards the rest of the world, that is heavily invested in hate.

 
Um, no it isn't.  The U.S. sends more money in aid to countries all over the world than I can count.  We also send tons of humanitarian aid every time a disaster hits a country that isn't capable of handling it on their own.  Anyone who considers us to be a tyranny is insane.

It is not irrelevant. The "RULES" can say it is evil. That doesn't mean that it is not an evil act to summarily kill the creature without giving it a chance to act in a manner that is beneficial to society at large. There are evil creatures in D&D that do just that. Killing those creatures is not a good act. It is an evil act.

If it's dedicated to evil, then it will continue to be evil.  A good person, even an "exalted" one, is not obligated to act intentionally stupid.  Such a person would know that there is virtually no chance of such a conversion happening and that it would be good for everyone(except the dragon) to just kill it and save hundreds of lives.

I have already given an example of an evil NPC who's actions exist in exactly just a gray space: King Kaius.

 
Sounds a lot like Magneto, who is would also be evil.  No one has said that an evil person cannot also do beneficial/good acts.

Killing a creature just because the rules say it is evil is not a good act. One must look at a larger picture.

 
I am.  Such a creature will continue to run around murdering innocents, so killing the dragon would be a good act.

Someone who goes around committing murder against every evil NPC they run across would be an evil character themselves.

 
Here's a strawman for you now.  No one has suggested this. 

Right. Yet many people from your country and others don't keep an open mind.  It doesn't take many of you to set someone off.

America is not an American. America is a political entity. It is a government. The actions of that government often seem egotistical to the rest of the world.

I'll grant you that.  Our government does tend to have an over high opinion of itself compared to the rest of the world.

No, it is not. According to the rules of D&D, a "evil" creature is not necessarily capital E, irredeemable, evil. See King Kaius.

 
I would if I could.  From what you've said, he sounds like a Magneto.  Someone who is evil, but is also capable of doing good acts.  The problem is that doing good acts isn't always enough to move you out of evil.  I have no idea where he would really stand since I can't read about him and what he does/has done.

Of course the actions of the rest of the world depend on the situation. But given the right situation, the rest of the world will align against America.

The only conceivable situation would be if America is threatening/attacking the rest of the world anyway.  It would not happen from melting Iran or North Korea.

But it was the publicly mediated reason, and therefore it is fair game. Indeed, to this day members of that administration continue to claim that that was the original reason to invade.

Bush changed the "publicly mediate reason" multiple times as the months went by.  And of course they would continue to claim that, they really don't have much choice

Again, a "Bush" mistake is an "American" mistake. Bush did not commit those actions personally. Soldiers, in the name of America, did what their president told them to do. The institution acted as a congruent entity. Thus, to take all of the actions of the military body and to place those actions on the shoulders of Bush is simply ridiculous. The institution bears culpability.

 
The only "Bush" mistake was the torture.  Everything else was individuals acting AGAINST what they were supposed to do and those caught are paying or in the process of paying for their actions.

If America went off and melted down Iran and North Korea with nukes it would not be suicidal to
destroy America. It would be good sense. At that point in time America would have proven itself to dangerous a political body to exist.

 
Are you really suggesting that America would not destroy the rest of the world at that point?  There are only two options if America melts Iran and/or North Korea.

1) Do nothing since America isn't going to be attacking a stable, non-insane Country.

2) Attack America and die.

Option 2 is suicide.  See suicide by cop.  It would almost the same thing.

There is nothing arguable about it.

 
Bush was not elected the first time around.  The Supreme Court had no authority to do what it did.  In short, the Supreme Court usurped power it did not have to place Bush in office against the will of the nation.  That makes it arguable.

Yea, I really don't agree. If America went off and melted down those two countries with nukes the economic sanctions would cripple America's economy, and I do not doubt for a second that some very serious military actions would begin against America. It is one thing to wage a war against a country. It is another thing to melt a country down with nukes. The world stage would probably stand for the first. I doubt they would ever be willing to stand for the second.

You seriously understimate the power of the self-preservation instinct.  Governments aren't about to suicide by nuking America.

May 12, 2010 -- 2:32PM, T-Mack wrote:

May 12, 2010 -- 2:09PM, Cyber-Dave wrote:

Yea, I really don't agree. If America went off and melted down those two countries with nukes the economic sanctions would cripple America's economy, and I do not doubt for a second that some very serious military actions would begin against America. It is one thing to wage a war against a country. It is another thing to melt a country down with nukes. The world stage would probably stand for the first. I doubt they would ever be willing to stand for the second.

Economic sanctions?  Against the US?  Really?  Do you really think this could happen?  Texas alone has an economy larger than half of Europe, not to mention California.

America would definitely find itself involved in WW3, but trying to out-sanction the US is a loosing strategy if there ever was one.

It would happen and it would hurt badly for a few years.  We just have too much being produced overseas to jump right into producing for ourselves.  However, once we started producing our own goods again, the rest of the world would be sitting there only hurting themselves.

Your kidding, right?

Al Gore lost, period. Get over it, Chad.

Mr Bush was put into a very difficult position when the towers fell, and the Iraq War languished in stalled direction as it was discovered that our enemy there had no uniforms, no front lines, and no moral compass. The Surge worked, but almost four years to late, and our haste under this new administration to draw down the number of the troops there might serve to undo all the progress we have made for Iraq thus far.

Yes, the WMD's was moved, dismantled or simply buried somewhere (god knows there is plenty of dessert to bury stuff in) but our reasons for going in was far more involved than the question of what weapons Saddam was hiding/using. We are in the same situation now with Iran.

Politically speaking, we are in worse shape overall here in the US now than at any point during Bush's tenure. I won't go into details, as it is a major swerve from the topic of the thread, so I shall leave it with the fact that the current president is only gonna be for one term, if he doesn't get empeached beforehand.

Evil characters within the party in D&D would add friction to a game like someone wanting to put politics into a thread about how impracticle evil is to a party.

May 12, 2010 -- 4:02PM, Maxperson wrote:

...stuff...

Neat. Well, we will have to agree to disagree Maxperson. At this point in time I don't see our conversation going anywhere but in circles. What I have said still stands. I am sure you feel the same. That is about all there is to that! Was a fun little chat though. Thank you.

P.S. On a slightly off topic tangent, and moving away from the arguing with each other: I don't know a lot about Magneto. However, King Kaius is not an "Evil" (capital E emphasized) character who occasionally does good acts. He is a person whose primary driving force of motivation is the good of his country, and the welfare of the people that live in that country. In the name of his country, and the welfare of the people that live in that country, he has been forced to make some very tough decisions. In order to stave off the destruction of Karrnath he essentially made a pact with "the devil," the devil in this case being a dangerous half-dragon she-Lich necromancer.

She had him transformed into a vampire, and gave him the necromantic magic he needed in order to raise an army to defend his people in the face of a plague that left them without the military numbers to continue to defend themselves. However, when her actions started to put his country and people in what he felt was danger he started to distance himself from her. In return she used magic that caused him to go mad with bloodlust. In the process he killed his wife. I can't remember exactly when/why, it might have been right after the death of his wife, but he was eventually forced to feign his own death. He failed to distance himself from the Lich, or the hold the Lich's cult/religion had over his country.

Later in life he let one of his kin take the throne, got rid of the person, took his place, and used domination to bring the rest of the royal family in line. Pretending to be his grandson (or is it great-grandson? I can't remember) he managed to successfully cut his countries ties to the Lich's cult (something that it did not seem anyone else in the royal family planned to do, perhaps because nobody but he realized her true motivations and plans, and the true danger she represents). He has since become one of the major voices for peace in order to end the "Great War," a 100 year war that has left the setting's continent in ruins, and a major player at the signing of the Treaty of Thronehold. Despite the wishes of many of Karrnath's warlords to restart the war (which would probably be disastrous to the average population, as Karrnath was already one of the nations hit the hardest by the war) Kaius rules with an iron fist to keep them in line, and to keep the war from starting again.

Doesn't sound like an evil character? That is because he largely isn't. He is one of the many square pegs that has been haphazardly fit into the round holes of the D&D alignment system. The only thing that makes Kaius evil is that he is willing to perform any action, any action at all, for the greater good of his people. If he is offered the chance to kill 100 innocents to save 1,000 he does so without a second thought. About the only place where this starts to become "evil" is that if another option presents itself, but that other option is not a sure thing, he won't risk it. Better to 100% for sure cause 100 innocents to die in order to 100% for sure save 1,000 innocents than it is to have a 50% chance of not causing anyone to die, but a 50% chance of allowing 1,000 people to die.

May 12, 2010 -- 4:25PM, thaX wrote:

, so I shall leave it with the fact that the current president is only gonna be for one term, if he doesn't get empeached beforehand.

LOL He can't lose.  Palin is going to make sure of that by splitting the vote between Republicans and Tea Party.  Without her meddling, the Republicans would have had a chance if they could dig up someone with enough charisma.  Right now they have bupkis.

 

China currently holds the bonds to nearly all of our debt.  They could cripple us permanently in a heartbeat.  But they won't, because that would screw them...because we're the only ones who buy their lame crap.

We could survive economic sanctions against us, and we could even tell China to screw off.  It's not as if they can come invade us.   We're all armed, there are 300 million of us, it's our turf, and they don't have the means to transport their vast military to our shores.  They'd trickle in, at best, and never get anywhere.  They have a huge military, but no ability to project their power anywhere but within their own borders.

America no longer has the nuclear firepower to obliterate more than maybe Australia.  A significant portion of our delivery vehicles and warheads are no longer in safe operational condition or are currently being upgraded or dismantled.  Russia is about the same.  The other nuclear-capable nations all combined are about the same.

For the record...people who admit to being bad are good...and people who claim to be good are bad.  Simple as that.  There are exceptions, as always, but not often enough to be worth giving a #@$! about.

On a final note...how did you people get on this?  Meh, whatever, that's the last I have to say about it.

May 12, 2010 -- 5:31PM, Cyber-Dave wrote:

Neat. Well, we will have to agree to disagree Maxperson. At this point in time I don't see our conversation going anywhere but in circles. What I have said still stands. I am sure you feel the same. That is about all there is to that! Was a fun little chat though. Thank you.

Sure thing.  It was lots of fun.  Thank you for the debate.

I don't know a lot about Magneto. However, King Kaius is not an "Evil" (capital E emphasized) character who occasionally does good acts. He is a person whose primary driving force of motivation is the good of his country, and the welfare of the people that live in that country.

Magneto is similar, only replace country with mutant.  He would do just about anything for a mutant, but humans can rot in hell.  At one point he lead the X-men, but has since fallen back into his old ways.

She had him transformed into a vampire, and gave him the necromantic magic he needed in order to raise an army to defend his people in the face of a plague that left them without the military numbers to continue to defend themselves. However, when her actions started to put his country and people in what he felt was danger he started to distance himself from her. In return she used magic that caused him to go mad with bloodlust. In the process he killed his wife. I can't remember exactly when/why, it might have been right after the death of his wife, but he was eventually forced to feign his own death. He failed to distance himself from the Lich, or the hold the Lich's cult/religion had over his country.

Later in life he let one of his kin take the throne, got rid of the person, took his place, and used domination to bring the rest of the royal family in line. Pretending to be his grandson (or is it great-grandson? I can't remember) he managed to successfully cut his countries ties to the Lich's cult (something that it did not seem anyone else in the royal family planned to do, perhaps because nobody but he realized her true motivations and plans, and the true danger she represents). He has since become one of the major voices for peace in order to end the "Great War," a 100 year war that has left the setting's continent in ruins, and a major player at the signing of the Treaty of Thronehold. Despite the wishes of many of Karrnath's warlords to restart the war (which would probably be disastrous to the average population, as Karrnath was already one of the nations hit the hardest by the war) Kaius rules with an iron fist to keep them in line, and to keep the war from starting again.

Doesn't sound like an evil character? That is because he largely isn't. He is one of the many square pegs that has been haphazardly fit into the round holes of the D&D alignment system. The only thing that makes Kaius evil is that he is willing to perform any action, any action at all, for the greater good of his people. If he is offered the chance to kill 100 innocents to save 1,000 he does so without a second thought. About the only place where this starts to become "evil" is that if another option presents itself, but that other option is not a sure thing, he won't risk it. Better to 100% for sure cause 100 innocents to die in order to 100% for sure save 1,000 innocents than it is to have a 50% chance of not causing anyone to die, but a 50% chance of allowing 1,000 people to die.

Interesting.  I have two thoughts about him.  By D&D 3ed rules, he'd be evil.  By 4ed rules, unless he chose to side with evil, he'd be unaligned.   In any case, if a dragon is listed as evil, it has choses to side with and further the cause of evil, so it would do so if allowed to live.  Kaius should be unaligned and if 4ed has him listed as evil, I would change that.  It isn't so much a case of an evil person being different, but a case of them just getting his alignment wrong.

There is one minor detail here:

Before 4th Edition, good and evil were physical laws of the D&D universe; where you stood on the alignment chart was objective, not subjective. It also had an effect on how certain objects, spells, and locations interacted with you.

Now, alignment is used solely as a role playing tool with no mechanical impact one way or the other. Hence, the question ... why even include it?

May 12, 2010 -- 4:03PM, Maxperson wrote:

It would happen and it would hurt badly for a few years.  We just have too much being produced overseas to jump right into producing for ourselves.  However, once we started producing our own goods again, the rest of the world would be sitting there only hurting themselves.

China wouldn't last a month.  Germany is in no position to make demands.  No one else is worth worrying about.

May 12, 2010 -- 4:25PM, thaX wrote:

 I won't go into details, as it is a major swerve from the topic of the thread, so I shall leave it with the fact that the current president is only gonna be for one term, if he doesn't get empeached beforehand.

Evil characters within the party in D&D would add friction to a game like someone wanting to put politics into a thread about how impracticle evil is to a party.

Hide and watch, thax.  This party is just getting started.

May 12, 2010 -- 10:08PM, Guest689870068 wrote:

There is one minor detail here:

Before 4th Edition, good and evil were physical laws of the D&D universe; where you stood on the alignment chart was objective, not subjective. It also had an effect on how certain objects, spells, and locations interacted with you.

Now, alignment is used solely as a role playing tool with no mechanical impact one way or the other. Hence, the question ... why even include it?

As been mentioned before, it is a tool that the DM uses to denote "sides" in the adventure. It also directs the player to a simple role that he/she should expand on.

It is also a sacred cow that is now reined in from the mechanical mess that the previous editions had. (5 instead of 9, no implausables like CG or TN, and very little mechanical attatchment (like detecting alignment or prot against).

The real question is why a player would want to play evil characters with this new set up when there is a more focused spotlight on "heroic" parties and the Unaligned choice to have. To many, I think, are stuck with the previous edition's grid of alignments instead of the new scale.

That's a HUGE "If", and an incredibly dangerous one,

I am aware of that

You have  already acknowledged that sometimes killing is nesscessary, you just  don't think it ever is in DnD because of the "knock out" mechanic. You  feel that the mechanic trumps character motivation and practicality when  determining whether an action is "evil" or "good" (not to mention you  seem to lack a middle ground. you have repeatedly taken someone's  argument that killing is not an evil act (the motives determine that) to  be the same as claiming that killing is a good act, but they aren't the  same unless you honestly believe that actions can only be one of the  two (at which point I need to ask, is eating my breakfast ceral in the  morning an evil act or a good one?).

good point. let me try and refraise:

Because of the abilities of the PCs (in specific the way they can knock someone out instead of killing him) - there are a lot more situations where killing someone would/could be considered evil, in comparison with real life.

There is no practical hope for reformation

I disagree with you. So does the succubus paladin.

key word is practical.

my keyword is succubus. if creatures so vile as demons, which don't even have souls, but consist out of pure evil ... can, reform, I'dd say that there's a good chance for random goblin X.

Just as Sparing a life via the "knock out" mechanic isn't always  a valid alternative, contrary to your arguements thus far.

no no, I nerver claimed that knock out is always a valid alternative. however, I did claim that if there is a valid aternative to killing, killing is evil.
And as there is no bigger miss chance, kocking out can be the first step of such valid alternative

Your now offering options to do before they attack. So, when the  goblin's attack you in keep of the shaddowfell, because negotiations  broke down or were ignored (or perhaps noone spoke goblin), then what?

Then the number of valid atlernatives reduces.
When you get to zero, my premisse no longer applies. And thus my conclusion possibly* doens't apply.

^{*: possibly because if the premisse doesn't apply the train of thought doesn't apply. that doesn't mean the conclusion is true or false, however.}